DNC Chair Delivers Searing Fact Check Of Sen. Tim Scott's Trump Claim

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) made a misleading boast about former President Donald Trump and was swiftly fact-checked for it.

“Under President Donald Trump, we brought the lowest unemployment rates to minorities the country’s ever seen,” Scott said on Fox News Thursday.

Yes, unemployment rates for several minority groups had fallen to record lows in 2019, continuing a trend that began prior to Trump’s election. But unemployment soared to its highest in decades in 2020, in the early months of the pandemic, and Trump ended his presidency with an overall jobless rate of 6.3%, an increase of 1.6% from when he took office.

Unemployment fell again under President Joe Biden. In April 2023, the jobless rate for Black Americans dropped below 5% for the first time ever. It sat at about 5.2% for Black workers and 5% for Hispanics at the end of last year, and 3.7% overall.

Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, clapped back at Scott’s claim in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

“Actually,” wrote Harrison, tagging Scott, “President @JoeBiden brought the lowest unemployment rate for minorities, created 14.3 million new jobs, forgave $137 billion of student loan debt for almost 4 million people...”

He continued to rally off Biden’s achievements in a lengthy post that ended: “How much more time and how many characters do I have left, because I’m just getting started!”

Harrison wasn’t the only one to raise an eyebrow at Scott, who recently endorsed Trump in the GOP presidential race after ending his own bid in November and told the former president on stage at an event, “I just love you!”

Here’s what other commentators had to say: