Sen. Tim Scott Friday slammed "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett for claiming he was the victim of a hate crime and dismissed the idea that people who wear "Make America Great Again" hats to support President Donald Trump are inciting violence.
"Anytime you try to weaponize hate through false accusations, it is awful, it is despicable," the South Carolina lawmaker, the only black Republican in the Senate, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
Instead, Scott pointed out an attack on the University of California, Berkley, where Fox News reported earlier a man had punched a conservative student.
The matter would have caused an uproar if the attacker had been a conservative or if an African-American had been attacked, said Scott.
Meanwhile, he said MAGA hats have "nothing to do with inciting racism,"
"It's the left that wants to demonize Donald Trump, even though we have the lowest unemployment rate we've seen in 50 years, even though we have the lowest African-American unemployment rate that we've had in the history of the country, even though we keep moving in the right direction," said Scott.
On Friday, Fox TV announced that Smollett's character on the hit program will be removed from the last two episodes of the season after the actor was arrested on charges that he faked his own racist, homophobic attack in Chicago in January. Smollett Thursday turned himself in and has been released bond after being charged with a felony count of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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