from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. This is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to the Free Expression podcast from the Wall Street Journal Opinion page.

I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large, Journal. Thank you very much for joining us. If you're not

already a subscriber, please do sign up at Apple Podcasts or Spotify or indeed

wherever you get your podcasts. This week, the latest in my series of interviews with the Republican

presidential candidates for next year's election. I'm joined by Tim Scott, Senator from South Carolina.

Tim Scott was born in 1965, along with his brother, was raised by his mother in working class poverty.

He graduated from Charleston Southern University. He worked for a while in financial services

and then entered state national politics. Having served a term in the House of Representatives,

in 2013, Scott was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the Senate by none other than then-South

Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is, of course, now a rival of the

senators for the GOP nomination. He was elected to a full term in 2016 and then re-elected in 2022.

He's the first African-American to be a United States senator from the southern U.S. since Reconstruction.

He's made much of his biography in his presidential pitch to voters, telling them that his life story is a reflection of the American dream, that his family, as he puts it, went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.

He's had a reliably conservative voting record, but he has worked across party lines on a number of issues, including crime and measures to alleviate urban poverty.

Earlier this year, he launched his campaign for president with a notably

positive message. I choose freedom and hope and opportunity, he said. And he also added that the

party faced a choice between grievance or greatness. Well, I'm going to talk about all that now with

Senator Tim Scott. Senator, thanks very much for joining Free Expression. Absolutely. It's good to be

with you. Thanks so much. Senator, as I said in my introduction, you've launched your campaign. You've made your life story, your biography, an important part of your campaign, and you've struck a very positive tone. You've talked about your story being, in a sense, a reflection to the American dream, about what can be achieved. Your message is very much that America is It's a great country and that there are many great things that can be achieved. Your message is very much that America is a great country and

that there are many great things that can be achieved. Obviously, much needs to be done, but it is

fundamentally a good country. That message, if I may say so, is kind of a little bit at odds,

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