Tim Scott says ‘I’m running for president of the United States’ in announcement speech – as it happened

Republican senator Tim Scott threw his hat into the ring with a speech in South Carolina where he promised to pursue a more compassionate form of conservatism, while advocating for hardline border security policies and downplaying the effects of racial inequality on American society. The GOP’s presidential field is crowded and set to become more packed on Wednesday when Ron DeSantis makes his campaign official, but can anyone defeat the final boss of Republican politicians, Donald Trump? We’ll see.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy will meet at 5.30pm to (hopefully) resolve the debt ceiling standoff.

• The NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida over policies DeSantis has pursued as governor, and which he will likely try to sell voters on in his presidential campaign.

• Mandatory water cuts were avoided in the west after the Biden administration and several states agreed to a deal regarding management of the Colorado river.

• Trump and fellow South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham both wished Scott well on his presidential bid.

• Speaking of Trump, federal prosecutors have evidence that he was warned he could not hold onto classified documents, the Guardian has confirmed.

We’re 10 days away from 1 June, the estimated date when the US government, fresh out of cash and prohibited by the legal debt ceiling from borrowing more money, will default on its obligations for the first time in history.

Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy are in the midst of negotiations over a deal to raise the limit, likely in exchange for spending cuts or the enactment of conservative priorities that the GOP has demanded. But it’s coming awfully close to the deadline, particularly since it takes several days for Congress to consider and vote on legislation, and there’s no telling who might object to whatever deal the Democratic president reaches with the Republican speaker of House.

The Associated Press took a look at what might happen if Washington does the unthinkable and actually defaults, and reached a grim verdict:

The repercussions of a first-ever default on the federal debt would quickly reverberate around the world. Orders for Chinese factories that sell electronics to the United States could dry up. Swiss investors who own U.S. Treasurys would suffer losses. Sri Lankan companies could no longer deploy dollars as an alternative to their own dodgy currency.

“No corner of the global economy will be spared” if the U.S. government defaulted and the crisis weren’t resolved quickly, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Zandi and two colleagues at Moody’s have concluded that even if the debt limit were breached for no more than week, the U.S. economy would weaken so much, so fast, as to wipe out roughly1.5 million jobs.

And if a government default were to last much longer — well into the summer — the consequences would be far more dire, Zandi and his colleagues found in their analysis: U.S. economic growth would sink, 7.8 million American jobs would vanish, borrowing rates would jump, the unemployment rate would soar from the current 3.4% to 8% and a stock-market plunge would erase $10 trillion in household wealth.

Biden and McCarthy are set for a 5.30pm meeting at the White House for further talks on a debt limit agreement.

In major news for western US states grappling with drought, the Guardian’s Oliver Milman reports that the Biden administration has agreed to a deal that will see them use less water from the Colorado river and ward off the prospect of mandatory water cuts:

A deal has been struck by Joe Biden’s administration for California, Arizona and Nevada to take less water from the drought-stricken Colorado River, in a bid to prevent the river dwindling further and imperiling the water supplies for millions of people and vast swaths of agricultural land in the US west.

The agreement, announced on Monday, will involve the three states, water districts, Native American tribes and farm operators cutting about 13% of the total water use in the lower Colorado basin, a historic reduction that will probably trigger significant water restrictions on the region’s residents and farmland.

In all, 3m acre-feet of water is expected to be conserved over the next three years – an acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, one foot deep. A single acre-foot is enough to sustain two average California households for a year.

Of these savings, 2.3m acre-feet will be compensated by the federal government, with $1.2bn going to cities, tribes and water districts. The rest of the savings will be voluntary, uncompensated ones to be worked out between the states.

The agreement averts, for now, the prospect of the Biden administration imposing unilateral water cuts upon the seven states – California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – that rely upon the river, a prospect that has loomed since last summer when the waterway’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, hit perilously low levels.

In the run-up to the presidential campaign announcement he’s expected to make on Wednesday, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis has overseen an effort by the state government to restrict what students can learn about race and diversity. That has prompted one of the country’s best-known civil rights groups to issue an unusual warning against visiting the state, the Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida, calling the state “actively hostile” to minorities as Florida’s conservative government limits diversity efforts in schools.

In a Saturday press release, the civil rights organization better known as the NAACP said the travel warning comes as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, “attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools”.

“Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” the advisory said.

While much of Monday’s political focus has been on the expanded field of 2024 Republican presidential candidates, Texas’s US senator Ted Cruz has drawn unflattering headlines from some quarters for announcing an investigation into the maker of Bud Light as his state is gripped by major crises.

Cruz, along with fellow Republican US senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, on Wednesday sent a letter to the beer industry’s regulatory body questioning whether Anheuser-Busch violated guidelines “prohibiting marketing to underage individuals” when transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April posted a video of herself on Instagram holding a custom Bud Light can with her face on it.

Rightwing media outlets and consumers reacted to Mulvaney’s video by calling for a boycott of Bud Light, which reported a 23% drop in sales for the final week of April as compared to the same period during the previous year, according to CBS News.

Meanwhile, as Business Insider noted, Cruz’s home state has experienced five of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in recent US history but has offered little in the way of solutions to that. He’s also hardly weighed in as Covid asylum limits known as Title 42 recently expired, giving way to new, arguably tougher immigration policies.

The rush to the US-Mexico border in Texas and other parts which preceded the expiration of Title 42 has brought extraordinary pressure to immigration officials, and politicos on both sides of the aisle have so far mostly just bused migrants to different cities rather than devise substantial solutions.

“Beer marketing, however – thanks to Cruz – has all the attention of the state’s top leaders” on Capitol Hill, as Insider put it.

Of Cruz’s latest culture war entry, Vanity Fair added: “No, he doesn’t have anything better to do.”

Tim Scott was announcing his presidential campaign on Monday, when a technical glitch left the 57-year-old senator in silence.

“Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. And that is why I am announcing today that I am running for president of the United States of America,” Scott told a cheering crowd at Charleston Southern University in his home state of South Carolina. “Our nation, our values, and our people are strong, but our president is weak,” he added.

At that point, the sound cut out. Here’s that moment, if you missed it earlier today:

Now that Tim Scott has announced his run for the presidency, my colleague Nick Robins-Early has pulled together 10 things you need to know about the newest Republican hopeful.

He writes:

Scott is a 57-year-old senator from South Carolina

Scott grew up in South Carolina, attending a Baptist university and owning an insurance company before becoming involved in politics. He entered politics in the mid-1990s as a Charleston, South Carolina, city council member before running for Congress.

Scott was first elected to Congress in 2010

Scott staked his political claim amid a wave of conservative opposition to Barack Obama’s presidency. As a member of the hardline conservative Tea Party movement, he was endorsed at the time by the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and became a rising star of the party. After two years as a congressman, he was chosen in 2012 to replace the Republican senator Jim DeMint and appointed to the Senate.

Scott is the sole Black Republican senator

Scott is the only Black Republican senator, and was the first Black Republican elected to the US House of Representatives from South Carolina in over a hundred years. He has previously talked about his unique role as a Black Republican and the discrimination he has faced from authorities, but has claimed that liberals use race as a way to divide voters. He faced heated criticism from Black activists in 2021 after declaring “America is not a racist country” in response to a speech from President Joe Biden that condemned racism following a white supremacist mass shooting.

Here’s the full explainer:

Politicos and voters of South Carolina who support both US senator Tim Scott and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley have been handed a dilemma now that they have both declared their candidacies for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

As the Associated Press pointed out Monday, Scott and Haley have a lengthy history and were even allies earlier in their careers. Both were members of South Carolina’s state House. And in 2012, while she was serving as governor of South Carolina, Haley appointed Scott to a state Senate seat in 2012.

Scott, who is the US Senate’s only Black Republican and formally launched his presidential campaign Monday, told the AP that he doesn’t consider the situation a dilemma and expressed his belief that he and Haley would remain friends despite their competing interests.

Meanwhile, the AP said Haley declined to comment when asked about Scott.

Others in the Republican field who have already declared include Donald Trump – who appointed Haley to her UN role during his presidency – as well as former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and Woke, Inc author Vivek Ramaswamy. Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis is widely expected to formally announce his presidential campaign in the coming days.

As for the Democrats, Joe Biden has announced that he will campaign for a second term in the Oval Office after defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Biden’s declared Democratic challengers so far include self-help author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr.

Republican senator Tim Scott threw his hat into the ring with a speech in South Carolina where he promised to pursue a more compassionate form of conservatism, while advocating for hardline border security policies and downplaying the effects of racial inequality on American society. The GOP’s presidential field is crowded and set to become more packed on Wednesday when Ron DeSantis makes his campaign official, but can anyone defeat the final boss of Republican politicians, Donald Trump? We’ll see.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy will meet at 5.30pm to (hopefully) resolve the debt ceiling standoff, which, by all indications, remains ongoing.

• Trump and fellow South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham both wished Scott well on his presidential bid.

• Speaking of Trump, federal prosecutors have evidence that he was warned he could not hold onto classified documents, the Guardian has confirmed.

And here’s what Donald Trump has to say about Tim Scott throwing his hat into the presidential ring:

Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican Presidential Primary Race. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable. I got Opportunity Zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful. Good luck Tim!

For those unfamiliar with Trump’s latest batch of zingers: Ron DeSanctimonious is the ex-president’s erstwhile ally Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is expected to announce his presidential campaign on Wednesday.

Senator Tim Scott is now the second South Carolinian vying for the Republican presidential nomination, after former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.

The state’s other senator, Republican Lindsey Graham, has already made public his endorsement of Donald Trump. He nonetheless reserved kind words for Scott in a statement released after his campaign’s official kick off:

Congratulations to my good friend Senator Tim Scott on his announcement that he is running for President of the United States.

Tim makes South Carolina proud, and he is one of the most talented and hard-working public servants I’ve ever known.

He will have an optimistic vision for the future of conservatism and America, and I know he will acquit himself well.

The anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America welcomed Senator Tim Scott’s formal entry into the 2024 Republican presidential primary today.

“We are encouraged by his commitment to sign the strongest achievable protections for life should he be elected president,” said the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser. “We welcome Scott and all presidential contenders further outlining their pro-life vision and policy platform.”

Scott has vowed to sign “the most conservative, pro-life legislation” that could pass Congress if he becomes president, but he has refused to specify his preferred time frame for a potential federal abortion ban.

When asked about his preferred cut-off point for banning the procedure, Scott told NBC News last month: “I’m not going to talk about six or five or seven or 10 [weeks].”

Dannenfelser said today, “The pro-life movement is seeking a national defender of life who will boldly advocate a minimum national standard to protect unborn children at least by 15 weeks when they can feel pain, and who will work tirelessly to build consensus and gather the votes necessary in Congress.”

In his presidential campaign announcement speech, Tim Scott recounted his upbringing from poverty, discounted the impact of racial inequality on Americans’ lives and restated conservative policy goals, from cutting taxes to building a wall along the US border with Mexico.

As he wrapped up his address, he vowed to promote on the campaign trail a friendlier form of conservatism.

“This can’t be another presidential campaign. We don’t have time for that. We need a president who persuades not just our friends and our base,” he said. “We have to have a compassion for people who don’t agree with us.”

He closed with these words: “I am living proof that God and a good family and the United States of America can do all things, if we believe. Will you believe it with me?”

In the months to come, we’ll find out if Republican voters share his faith.

Tim Scott has said the magic words.

“Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every single rung of the ladder that helped me climb and that’s why I’m announcing today I’m running for president of the United States of America,” the senator said to applause and cheers in his kick-off speech in North Charleston, South Carolina.

He began the speech by recounting his upbringing from poverty and downplaying the impacts of racial disparities in the economy, saying “I’m living proof that America is the land of opportunity and not a land of oppression.”

When it comes to policy, the senator is outlining familiar conservative priorities.

“On my first day as commander in chief, the strongest nation on earth will stop retreating from our southern border,” he said.

He embraced the conservative demand to deploy the military against drug traffickers, and vowed to restart construction of the border wall pioneered by Donald Trump.

“When I am president, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist. I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall and I will allow the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists. Because that’s exactly what they are.”

Tim Scott may be the lone Black Republican in the Senate, but his message to Republican voters downplays the impact of racial inequality in America.

“For those of you who wonder if America is a racist country, take a look at how people come together,” Scott said. “We are not defined by the color of our skin. We are defined by the content of our character.”