Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Tuesday announced a plan to invest $386 million in a high-speed internet expansion effort.The plan will cover 46 counties across the Bluegrass State and expand internet access to over 42,600 residences and businesses.‘High-speed internet is no longer a luxury,’ Beshear posited at a news conference. ‘It is an absolute infrastructure necessity.’

Looking to close its digital divide, Kentucky will use a $386 million investment to expand access to high-speed internet to more than 42,600 homes and businesses, Gov. Andy Beshear said Tuesday.

It amounts to a record investment of broadband money for Kentucky, a combination of public and private sector funds that will be spread broadly among 46 counties, Beshear said. It’s the next phase of a bipartisan policy goal to connect every Kentucky home and business to reliable, high-speed internet.

‘High-speed internet is no longer a luxury,’ the Democratic governor said at a news conference. ‘It is an absolute infrastructure necessity.’

Kentucky policymakers are pursuing a long-term effort to connect areas with no internet access or chronically slow service. The persistent lack of access in some parts of the state was laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic, when remote work and schooling were hampered by significant gaps in connectivity.

The latest round of funding shows the GOP-led legislature’s goal of expanding broadband access ‘is within reach,’ said Republican House Speaker David Osborne. He pointed to legislative initiatives that created and funded the Kentucky Broadband Deployment Fund and Office of Broadband Development.

‘While today’s announcement is a step in the right direction, a great deal of work remains to be done before Kentuckians across the commonwealth have access to high-speed internet,’ Osborne said in a statement after the governor’s announcement.

The broadband awards are the result of a 2021 agreement between lawmakers and the governor to use $300 million of federal pandemic relief funds to extend broadband service.

In mid-2022, the governor announced the first round of awards from the state’s broadband deployment fund, totaling $89.1 million. Combined with matching funds, more than $203 million was committed to ensure access for more than 34,000 families and businesses, the governor’s office said.

On Tuesday, the governor awarded 56 grants totaling more than $196 million in public funds from the broadband deployment fund. Internet service providers receiving grant funding will contribute more than $190 million in matching funds.

Beshear said there are even ‘bigger days to come’ in the state’s broadband expansion work, pointing to a nearly $1.1 billion federal grant that the state secured this year. It will amount to the largest public investment in high-speed internet in the state’s history, the governor’s office said. Beshear said he hopes the state can draw down the first $200 million from that amount by year’s end.

It’s all part of a ‘transformative’ push to achieve universal, reliable internet access statewide, he said.

‘We’re talking about access everywhere,’ Beshear said. ‘It doesn’t mean universal access except where it’s difficult, or except where the terrain is tough. Our goal is high-speed internet to everyone. No exceptions.’

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SALEM, N.H. – Vivek Ramaswamy argues that former Vice President Mike Pence and some of his other rivals for the GOP presidential nomination ‘feel threatened by my rise.’

Pence and Ramaswamy have been feuding for nearly two weeks — and on Monday they nearly came face to face for the first time since their tense exchanges at the initial Republican presidential primary debate, a Fox News-hosted showdown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Aug. 23.

The two candidates, along with fellow 2024 GOP White House contenders former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, mingled with Republican officials, lawmakers, activists and voters and addressed the crowd at the Salem, New Hampshire, GOP’s annual Labor Day picnic.

But Pence and Ramaswamy kept their distance, with the multi-millionaire biotech entrepreneur and first-time candidate glad handling with voters as Pence addressed the crowd and the former vice president departed for another campaign event before Ramaswamy took to the stage about a half an hour later.

That wasn’t the case at the first debate, when the two repeatedly clashed.

Discussing the economy, Pence referred to Ramaswamy as a ‘rookie’ and emphasized that ‘now is not the time for on-the-job training.’

Ramaswamy, in a separate exchange as he referred to Pence while addressing the audience, argued, ‘Do you want a super PAC puppet, or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth?’

Pence is polling in the mid-single digits, along with many of his rivals for the nomination, far behind his two-time running mate, former President Donald Trump. Ramaswamy, who grabbed plenty of attention at the first debate as he repeatedly came under attack from Pence, former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, has seen his support rise in recent polling, and is rivaling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in some surveys.

Since the debate, the 64-year-old Pence has continued to take aim at Ramaswamy on a number of issues, from the 38-year-old’s tax proposal to Russian’s war on Ukraine, to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

Ramaswamy has returned fire, suggesting the then-vice president missed an ‘historic opportunity’ to promote voting reforms as he certified the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021, amid the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Pence called Ramaswamy’s suggestion ‘incoherent and unconstitutional.’

The high-profile spat is more than just a generational dispute, it’s proxy battle between the populist MAGA wing of the party and more traditional conservatives over the future of the GOP 

‘He’s good man, a good family man. But he’s just wrong on foreign policy,’ Pence said of Ramaswamy on ‘Fox News Sunday’ this past weekend. ‘I mean, the way he wants to let [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin keep what he’s grabbed in Ukraine and make promises that Ukraine will never be in NATO, the way he’s willing to walk away from Taiwan after 2028 and let China grab it.’ 

Asked about the criticism, Ramaswamy stressed in a Fox News Digital interview on Monday, ‘If you listen to exactly what I’ve been saying, I’ve been consistent. Now I understand why they’re doing it. They feel threatened by my rise.’

‘A lot of those statements have been badly distorted. But I’m actually very clear about where I stand. I just favor our ability to respectfully disagree without actually mischaracterizing the opponents’ positions,’ Ramaswamy emphasized.

But Ramaswamy deferred from taking a direct shot at Pence.

Asked later about Pence as he took questions from reporters, Ramaswamy said, ‘He’s a good guy, and I wish him well in his life as a family man and continue to do whatever he does, what’s in store next for him. But that’s not a principal concern of mine.’

And he reiterated ‘the fact that we’re having real debates in this party, the division between the neoconservative foreign policy establishment and a new unapologetically nationalistic vision of how we advance American interests, that’s good. I’m glad we’ve smoked that out.’

Pence, asked about his differences with Ramaswamy, told reporters on Monday that ‘elections are about choices, and I had differences with a number of people on that stage and with one person who wasn’t on that stage,’ as he referred to Trump, who skipped the first debate.

‘I’m going to continue to lay out my vision for the Republican Party and for America, and I’m going to draw the contrasts so that at the end of the day, Republican voters here in New Hampshire and across America are going to know I’m the most consistent and most qualified and most tested conservative in this race,’ Pence emphasized.

The Labor Day picnic in Salem was Ramaswamy’s last event during a jam-packed, four-day swing through the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

Pence arrived in New Hampshire on Monday for a busy three days of campaigning, including a speech on Wednesday titled ‘Populism vs. Conservatism: Republicans’ Time for Choosing.’

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is bracing for his impeachment trial set to begin Tuesday, historically brought by state senators of his own political party. 

The state Senate is taking up 16 articles of impeachment relating to allegations of bribery, dereliction of duty and disregard of official duty against Paxton, who will be just the third person to stand for an impeachment trial in the history of the Texas legislature. 

A close ally to former President Donald Trump, Paxton spearheaded several lawsuits in December 2020 challenging the presidential election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin showing a victory for Joe Biden. Paxton also spoke during Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, before the eventual riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

But the impeachment trial centers around Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. Paxton, who has decried the trial as a ‘political motivated sham,’ and an effort to disenfranchise his voters, won a third term in 2022 despite long-pending state criminal charges and an FBI investigation.

The GOP-led state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton in May, largely based on his former deputies’ claims that the attorney general used his power to help a wealthy donor who reciprocated with favors including hiring a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair.

Paxton faces trial by a jury — the 31 state senators — stacked with his ideological allies and a ‘judge,’ Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who loaned $125,000 to his last reelection campaign. His wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, will attend the trial but cannot participate or vote. 

Two other senators play a role in the allegations against Paxton. A two-thirds majority — or 21 senators — is required for conviction, meaning that if all 12 Senate Democrats vote against Paxton, they still need at least nine of the 19 Republicans to join them.

The trial will likely bring forth new evidence, but the outline of the allegations against Paxton has been public since 2020, when eight of his top deputies told the FBI that the attorney general was breaking the law to help Paul. The deputies — largely conservatives whom Paxton handpicked for their jobs — told investigators that Paxton had gone against their advice and hired an outside lawyer to probe Paul’s allegations of wrongdoing by the FBI in its investigation of the developer. 

They also said Paxton pressured his staff to take other actions that helped Paul.

Federal prosecutors continue to examine Paul and Paxton’s relationship, so the evidence presented during his impeachment trial poses a legal as well as a political risk to the attorney general. Paul was indicted in June on federal criminal charges based on allegations that he made false statements to banks to secure more than $170 million in loans. He pleaded not guilty and has broadly denied wrongdoing in his dealings with Paxton.

The two men bonded over a shared feeling that they were the targets of corrupt law enforcement, according to a memo by one of the staffers who went to the FBI. Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015 but is yet to stand trial. The Senate is not taking up, at least initially, three impeachment articles about the alleged securities fraud and a fourth related to Paxton’s ethics filings.

After going to the FBI, all eight of Paxton’s deputies quit or were fired. Four of the deputies later sued Paxton under the state whistleblower act. The bipartisan group of lawmakers who led Paxton’s impeachment in the House said it was him seeking $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to settle with the group that prompted them to investigate his dealings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Ukraine has intercepted more than a dozen phone calls from Russian front line troops complaining of heavy losses and a lack of critical supplies since July.

The 17 phone calls, shared by Ukrainian intelligence services, show Russian troops speaking with family members and railing against Russia’s war effort. The timeline of the calls matched Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces, which has only recently begun gaining major ground.

‘They are f—ing us up,’ one soldier, Andrey, told his wife on July 12, according to Reuters. ‘No f—ing ammunition, nothing…. Shall we use our fingers as bayonets?’

‘We’re like beggars. It’s like 1941 with one rifle between five soldiers. Nothing’s changed,’ he added.

Another soldier, Maxim, said Russian leadership had turned his battalion into ‘crumbs’ with poorly planned attacks against Ukrainian forces.

‘That’s it. There is no second battalion left. They f—ing turned it to crumbs,’ he told his wife on July 3.

Another soldier, Alexei, described the grim reality of Russian troops being unable to recover their dead.

‘They were torn apart. They’re lying there: they can’t even collect some of them. They’re already rotten – eaten by worms,’ he told his mother on July 12.

‘Really?’ she replied.

‘Just imagine, thrown on the front line with no equipment, nothing,’ her son continued.

The phone calls offer a glimpse into the morale of Russian forces whose efforts to curtail Ukrainian counteroffensives have been mostly successful in recent months. The cost of keeping Ukrainian forces at bay has been steep, however.

Ukraine dismissed its defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, on Monday after months of slow progress. Nevertheless, Ukrainian forces made their first significant gains of their campaign earlier this week, punching through Russia’s first line of defense in Southern Ukraine.

‘Little by little, I think we’re gaining momentum,’ Ukrainian defense official Yuriy Sak told the BBC.

Russian forces also faced a dramatic summer due to the brief rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group. The group’s former head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched his mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin in late June, and Putin responded by withdrawing all mercenaries from the war in Ukraine.

That move,  however, may have exacerbated the supply issues Russian troops were already facing.

‘Everyone’s scared…. They’re sending mobilized troops to the front line,’ Alexei said to his mother. ‘In the end, the generals couldn’t care less.’

Reuters contributed to this report,

First lady Jill Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement from her office on Monday. President Biden tested negative for the virus.

‘This evening, the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19,’ the statement reads. ‘She is currently experiencing only mild symptoms. She will remain at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.’

The first lady is double-vaccinated, twice boosted, according to a statement from her communications director last year.

The last time the 72-year-old tested positive for the virus was in August 2022. At the time, she was staying at a private residence in South Carolina.

‘Following the First Lady’s positive test for COVID-19, President Biden was administered a COVID test this evening,’ White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. ‘The President tested negative. The President will test at a regular cadence this week and monitor for symptoms.’

The announcement comes amid rising COVID cases and hospitalizations throughout the country as several hospital systems have reinstated mask-wearing requirements for patients and staff.

President Biden will award the Medal of Honor, the highest military award for valor, to a Vietnam War Army helicopter pilot whose rescue efforts include willfully flying into heavy enemy fire to save four members of a reconnaissance team about to be overrun with just seconds to spare.

On Tuesday, Biden is expected to recognize retired Capt. Larry Taylor, of Tennessee, at the White House for his valor and bravery on display during a specific rescue mission in June 1968 that included a feat ‘that had never been accomplished or even attempted,’ the White House announced.

Taylor flew hundreds of combat missions in UH-1 ‘Huey’ helicopters and Cobra helicopters during a year’s deployment in Vietnam and proudly told The Associated Press, ‘We never lost a man.’

‘You just do whatever is expedient and do whatever to save the lives of the people you’re trying to rescue,’ Taylor added during an interview.

Taylor’s Medal of Honor will be awarded at the White House for the ‘conspicuous gallantry’ he showed on the night of June 18, 1968 while successfully executing a rescue mission that was initially canceled as it stood no chance of survival — before Taylor defied the odds.

On that night, the Army became aware a long-range reconnaissance patrol near the Saigon River had been discovered by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops and came under intense ground fire.

Then-1st Lt. Taylor, who was serving as a team leader of a helicopter light-fire team, flew to the extraction site in his Cobra attack helicopter and radioed the patrol team. Both helicopters also fired upon the enemy with mini-guns and rockets.

‘Braving intense ground fire, the two Cobra gunships continued to make low-level attack runs for the next 45 minutes,’ the White House said, noting both helicopters were nearly out of ammunition when the mission took a turn for the worse.

While flying overhead the patrol team, Taylor was notified the plan to rescue the men was to be scrapped as it ‘stood almost no chance of success’ with the men still under heavy fire, and the enemy still closing in, the White House said.

Then Taylor took action.

‘Running low on fuel, with the patrol team nearly out of ammunition, Taylor decided to extract the team using his two-man Cobra helicopter, a feat that had never been accomplished or even attempted,’ a statement from the White House continued.

The new rescue mission included Taylor and his crew exhausting the last of their ammunition and a subtle diversion to distract the enemy forces while the patrol team heads out a different way. Then, the four patrol team members had to cling to the exterior of the helicopter during the extraction.

Here is how the White House described the events:

He [Taylor] directed his wingman to fire his remaining mini-gun rounds along the eastern flank of the patrol team and then return to base camp. Taylor fired his own remaining mini-gun rounds along the team’s western flank, using his Cobra’s landing lights to draw the enemy’s attention while the patrol team headed southeast toward a nearby extraction point Taylor had designated.

When the team reached the site, Taylor landed his Cobra under heavy enemy fire and with complete disregard for his personal safety. The patrol team climbed aboard, grabbing on to rocket-pods and skids, and Taylor carried them to a safe location before landing them back on the ground.

Taylor was on the ground for about 10 seconds. He then got his crew and all four of the patrol team members to safety.

Taylor, now 81, recalled during an interview last week with The Associated Press that failure was not an option. He had to figure out how to get them out — otherwise ‘they wouldn’t make it,’ he said.

‘I finally just flew up behind them and sat down on the ground,’ he explained. ‘They turned around and jumped on the aircraft. A couple were sitting on the skids. One was sitting on the rocket pods, and I don’t know where the other one was, but they beat on the side of the ship twice, which meant haul a–. And we did!’

David Hill, one of the four members of the patrol team that Taylor saved that night, described the Taylor’s as ‘thinking outside the box.’

What Taylor accomplished that night had never before been attempted, the Army said.

Taylor, a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, left Vietnam in August 1968. He was released from Army active duty in August 1970, having attained the rank of captain.

He was later discharged from the Army Reserve in October 1973.

Taylor and his wife, Toni, live in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.

He has received scores of combat decorations, including the Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two Distinguished Flying Crosses.

After not receiving the Medal of Honor for that harrowing night, several of his supporters pushed for him to be awarded one.

Their eventually successful efforts spanned nearly six years when Biden called Taylor in July with the news.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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SALEM, N.H. – Former President Trump is not joining any of his dozen rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in hitting the campaign trail on Labor Day.

The former president does not have to.

With four and a half months to go until the Iowa caucuses kick off the 2024 GOP presidential nominating calendar, Trump is leagues ahead of his challengers in the latest national polling and crucial early state surveys.

Trump’s lead expanded over the spring and summer as he made history as the first former or current president in American history to be indicted for a crime. Trump’s four indictments – including in federal court in Washington D.C. and in Fulton County court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss – have only fueled his support among Republican voters.

Trump stands at 59% support in the latest national poll in the GOP nomination race, a Wall Street Journal survey conducted Aug. 24-30. He held a gigantic 46-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, – who at 13% was slightly ahead of the rest of the field of contenders, all who registered in the single digits.

The most recent Fox News national poll, conducted in early August, indicated Trump had a 37-point lead.

While not as large, Trump still enjoys commanding double-digit leads over his rivals in the latest polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in the GOP nominating calendar and votes second after the Hawkeye State.

‘We’ve always firmly believed that President Trump would be the clear and away front-runner in this race and once he started to campaign and travel around the country and engage with voters that it would be clear that he’s in the driver’s seat,’ a top Trump campaign adviser, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News this summer.

However, compared to his rivals, Trump’s campaign schedule has been sparse. He last hit the trail Aug. 12 as he briefly greeted voters at the Iowa State Fair.

A factor in his light campaign dance card is that his schedule is being consumed by the criminal charges he faces in his four cases – each in separate jurisdictions.

‘I’m sorry, I won’t be able to go to Iowa today, I won’t be able to go to New Hampshire today because I’m sitting in a courtroom on bulls—,’ he said during a rally in New Hampshire in early August.

Trump’s dominance over his rivals is illustrated in more than just polls. He is also putting up some robust fundraising figures, courtesy of his legal troubles.

As Fox News first reported, Trump hauled in $9.4 million in less than a week after he surrendered to authorities in Atlanta in the Georgia election interference case and had his mug shot taken. The photo was instantly featured on T-shirts, mugs and posters, fueling fundraising. Trump’s campaign touted that in total, they raked in over $20 million in August.

Trump is also dominating coverage of the GOP nomination race with his trips to courthouses in New York, Miami, Washington and Atlanta receiving wall-to-wall coverage on the cable news networks and online.

Campaign aides tell Fox News the former president’s schedule will likely pick up in the coming weeks – starting with a stop on Friday in South Dakota, where he will team up with an ally and potential 2024 running-mate, conservative Gov. Kristi Noem.

Later in September, Trump is set to speak at the California GOP convention.

While Trump is currently lapping the field, a veteran Republican strategist says the race is far from over.

Longtime New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Jim Merrill, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns who is neutral in the 2024 nomination race, noted that ‘Donald Trump is king of the hill right now.’

However, Merrill noted that ‘there are a lot of candidates who are working really hard up here and what I’m seeing is that there’s an awful lot of interest in the candidates as they’re going around the state, holding town halls, doing parades. You’re seeing big crowds and interested voters.’

The FBI and Department of Defense have reportedly tracked more than 100 incidents of Chinese nationals posing as tourists to attempt to breach U.S. military bases and other federal sites. 

Those responsible, dubbed ‘gate crashers,’ range from Chinese nationals detected crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico, to scuba divers caught swimming in murky waters near a U.S. government rocket launch site in Florida, several U.S. officials recently told The Wall Street Journal. The growing trend represents a potential espionage threat, as authorities believe the Chinese government in some cases is compelling nationals into service in order to test out and report back about security practices at the installations. 

The FBI, Department of Defense and other agencies held a review late last year centered around deterring these incidents. It is not known how many incidents were benign in nature. For example, some Chinese nationals claim to have been following Google Maps to the nearest McDonald’s or Burger King, which happens to be located on a nearby military base. 

In other more concerning incidents, Chinese nationals arrived saying they had a reservation at a hotel on a military base. Recently, a group of Chinese nationals purporting to be tourists tried to force their way past guards at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, claiming they had reservations at a commercial hotel on the base, according to the Journal. 

Fort Wainwright is home to the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division focused on Arctic warfare. 

A Pentagon spokesperson told the Journal that in some cases Chinese nationals have achieved unauthorized access to military bases by speeding through security checkpoints. In those incidents, they are ‘often cited criminally, barred from future installation access and escorted off-base,’ the spokesperson said. 

Officials told the Journal the incidents have occurred in rural areas where tourism is less common and far from a commercial airport. They said the Chinese nationals often use what officials described as scripted language, claiming when stopped that they are tourists who have lost their way.

This type of low-level Chinese intelligence collection is more of a numbers game, a former Senate Intelligence Committee official told the Journal, explaining how the Chinese government is willing to throw numerous people at collection, knowing that if a few get caught it will be difficult for the U.S. government to prove anything nefarious beyond trespassing.

The same treatment of shrugging off the incidents as trespassing would not be afforded to Americans if they were caught doing the same inside China, the former official added. 

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told the Journal that Congress might consider legislation on the issue amid concern the growing number of incidents could fall through the cracks, as most trespassing laws are state and local, and not federal.

The Journal reported that repeat incidents have occurred at an intelligence center based in Key West, Florida, dating back to a few years ago involving Chinese nationals found swimming in nearby waters and taking pictures. Officials said other repeat incidents occurred at a U.S. Army range where Chinese nationals claiming to be tourists at nearby White Sands National Park crossed into the adjacent missile site and took pictures. And in another incident, Chinese nationals were caught scuba diving off Cape Canaveral, home to the Kennedy Space Center, which is used as launch site for spy satellites and other military missions, but that occurrence reportedly remains under investigation. 

U.S. officials also described Chinese nationals at the White House leaving tours to take photos of the grounds, communications equipment and positions of Secret Service and other guards.

Few, if any, of those cases resulted in espionage charges, officials said. 

Two Chinese diplomats who drove with their wives onto a Virginia base where U.S. Navy SEALS train were expelled from the country in 2019 on suspicion of espionage. 

In another public case in 2019, a Chinese woman was sentenced to eight months in prison after she entered former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate without authorization and was found to be carrying two passports, four cellphones and other electronics. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI, Defense Department and the White House National Security Council for comment Monday but did not immediately hear back. 

Tim Scott seldom specifically brings up race in Iowa. Nor does the Republican presidential candidate have to.

He is often the only Black person at his campaign events in the state. The South Carolina senator introduces himself as the product of early-life mentors who taught him not to be bitter.

When race comes up, he often says the United States is not fundamentally racist.

‘We don’t have Black poverty or white poverty. We have poverty,’ he told an all-white audience Thursday in Oskaloosa after being asked about race. He earlier had spoken about his poor Southern upbringing and his late grandfather, born into Jim Crow-era South Carolina.

‘The brilliance of this nation is that we keep moving forward, even though there are lots of forces who want us to think the problem is that someone doesn’t look like you,’ Scott said.

Scott, the only Black GOP presidential candidate campaigning aggressively in the early-voting state, is betting that his upbeat message of personal responsibility, wrapped in the Christian faith he comfortably cites, is a good fit for Iowa Republicans who might split from former President Donald Trump. So far, Scott and others in the White House race remain far behind Trump, and the senator did not achieve a breakout moment during the first GOP presidential debate.

Scott has been criticized by scholars who say his rejection of systemic racism, especially in light of the recent racist killings in Florida, plays down larger social and political obstacles facing African Americans.

But dozens of Iowa Republicans interviewed over the past several months say his position, common in the 2024 GOP field, resonates more coming from Scott than from others.

‘It definitely means more from him,’ said Mary Rozenboom, a 77-year-old retired hospital employee from Oskaloosa who is white. ‘He’s saying, ‘This is me. I’m Black. But I succeeded because I worked hard, and those opportunities remain in America.”

Recent polls suggest Scott’s support in the state hovering around 1 in 10 among likely participants in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, still four months away.

That is significantly behind Trump and slightly behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Still, it suggests Scott’s position in Iowa is slightly stronger than it is nationally, where his support in most recent polls hovers in the low single digits.

Scott may have unique advantages among Republican voters on race issues, according to political experts, even if his argument may be out of step with more diverse voters or in a general election.

Among voters for Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, just 18% said racism is a very serious problem in U.S. society, compared with 61% of voters for Democratic candidates, according to AP VoteCast data.

‘He’s a Black man who rejects the idea of systemic racism, which is very popular in Republican circles,’ said Christine Matthews, a national political pollster who has worked for Republican candidates. ‘It absolutely resonates more.’

But Yohuru Williams, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, said Scott is deliberately trying to appeal to voters who want to believe that racism is not a serious problem.

‘He’s glossing it over and saying he’s achieved all these things because he’s taken advantage of every opportunity and worked hard,’ Williams said. ‘It creates this kind of powerful, yet flawed, narrative that it’s grievance politics on the left that are solely responsible for economic inequality, for continued police brutality, for housing inequality.’

‘But it buys him points with that GOP base that says, ‘Finally, someone who sounds like me who is a Black person which proves I’m not racist,” he said.

Scott argues that racism is one of many forms of hatred that exist in the U.S. and that American society has improved over time.

He was asked to comment this summer on the accusation by Joy Behar, a host of the ABC talk show ‘The View,’ that he failed to understand systemic racism.

‘I said America is not a racist country,’ he said. ‘Because it’s not.’

He achieved his political rise in South Carolina, once the cradle of the Confederacy. As in Iowa, the Republican primary vote there is vastly white.

When he won a seat in the U.S. House in 2010, Scott became the first Black Republican elected to Congress from South Carolina since the 1890s, during an era when white Democrats ousted many Republican officeholders after Reconstruction and disenfranchised Black people through state-sponsored violence, including lynching.

Scott won the House primary by beating Paul Thurmond, the son of longtime South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who fought against civil rights legislation. Scott was later appointed to the U.S. Senate and has been reelected twice to six-year terms.

‘I think it is important that, in the history of eternity, that I had the good fortune of being born in the place where the Civil War started, being elected in the seat that Strom Thurmond used to hold, to be in a position to have this serious conversation that confronts racial outcomes in this nation,’ he told The Associated Press in 2020.

Bonnie Boyle, upon leaving a June event, compared Scott to the late former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Black figures popular among Republicans.

‘I don’t think I’m prejudiced, but I know a lot of people who are, and I don’t think the color of your skin should matter,’ said Boyle, who is white. ‘Tim Scott says you can rise above the perception that you’re stuck, and you can make it, and I like that a lot.’

Most of the Republican presidential candidates deny the U.S. faces systemic racism. And the study of race in American society has animated core Republican audiences. Several Republican-controlled states have invoked critical race theory in legislation restricting how race can be taught in public schools. GOP lawmakers in some states have also tried to outlaw or defund diversity and equity programs intended to address disparities in racial representation.

Scott was a key spokesman for the party and involved in legislation in Congress aimed at reducing police violence after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police in May 2020.

The senator seldom mentions that legislative work in Iowa. The legislation would have, among other measures, established a commission to study race and law enforcement. Republicans and Democrats were unable to reach a compromise package and legislative efforts fell apart.

Already in this campaign, Scott has faced unique expectations to respond when Florida issued new state education guidelines on slavery. DeSantis repeatedly defended the guidelines, which require teachers to instruct students that enslaved people learned skills ‘could be applied for their personal benefit.’

‘What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating,’ Scott told reporters in Iowa. ‘So I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly running for president — would appreciate that.’

Scott’s success has not come by ignoring America’s legacy of slavery and segregation, said Stephen Gilchrist, a Black man who is a Republican and chairman and CEO of the South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce.

‘He tries to live up to the creed of Dr. Martin Luther King, where we shouldn’t be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character,’ said Gilchrist, who has not endorsed a candidate for 2024. ‘He’s inspired many of us who are African American Republicans.’

But Frederick Gooding Jr., an African American studies professor at Texas Christian University, said untold more Black Americans have worked just as hard as Scott but struggled against invisible barriers.

‘He did work hard,’ he said. ‘But it’s not quite that simplistic.’

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President Biden said Sunday during his visit to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, that he was not on vacation and has no home to go to for the time being.

Biden approached reporters after leaving Mass at St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church and, unprompted, revealed his weekend trip was not for vacation purposes, according to The Associated Press. The president, who has two homes in Delaware, lives at the White House but spends most of his weekends in the First State.

‘I have no home to go to,’ Biden told the reporters.

The president said the U.S. Secret Service has been working on his longtime primary residence in Wilmington, Delaware, to make it more secure ‘in a good way.’ He has not spent a night in Wilmington in months.

‘So I have no place to go when I come to Delaware, except here, right now,’ he said, referring to his home in Rehoboth Beach. ‘I’m only here for one day.’

Biden first told reporters about the security upgrades to his home in Wilmington back in April after he traveled to the beach house following a trip to Ireland.

The president arrived at the Delaware coast Saturday night following a stop in Florida earlier that day to survey damage from Hurricane Idalia. He was initially scheduled to spend Labor Day weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach but changed his plans after last week’s storm.

The First Family spent a week on vacation in Nevada’s Lake Tahoe region two weeks ago. The Republican National Committee and GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill have regularly criticized Biden for his weekend trips away from the White House.

The reporters who ran into the president on Sunday asked if he was insinuating that he is homeless, The AP reported.

‘No, I’m not homeless,’ he responded. ‘I just have one home. I have a beautiful home. I’m down here for the day because I can’t go home home.’

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital seeking additional information on Biden’s remarks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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