The South Carolina senator Tim Scott criticized Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor also running for the Republican presidential nomination, for supporting new standards that require Florida teachers to tell middle school students people enslaved in the US developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit”.
“What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives,” Scott, the only Black Republican in the US Senate, told reporters on Thursday after a town hall event in Ankeny, Iowa.
“It was just devastating. So I would hope that every person in our country – and certainly running for president – would appreciate that.
“People have bad days. Sometimes they regret what they say. And we should ask them again to clarify their positions.”
DeSantis, who has pursued a hard-right agenda in office that he is now attempting to replicate in the Republican primary, has faced criticism from Florida teachers, civil rights leaders and the White House.
Kamala Harris, the first Black vice-president, traveled to Florida last week to condemn the curriculum.
Scott and DeSantis were speaking in Iowa on Thursday ahead of the state Republican party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, at which 13 candidates will address an expected 1,200 activists on Friday.
The former president Donald Trump dominates Republican primary polling, with wide leads in early voting states like Iowa and in national surveys.
Scott, part of the GOP’s most diverse field ever, was asked about the new Florida school standards on teaching about slavery in the US hours after DeSantis had defended them.
“At the end of the day, you got to choose: are you going to side with Kamala Harris and liberal media outlets or are you going to side with the state of Florida?” DeSantis told reporters.
“I think it’s very clear that these guys did a good job on those standards. It wasn’t anything that was politically motivated.”
English (US)