Former President Barack Obama believes Americans are “rightly skeptical” of GOP presidential candidate Tim Scott’s optimistic tone on race relations.

In a recent interview with former White House senior advisor David Axelrod, Obama suggested that Scott’s hopeful message on race is lacking “an honest accounting of our past and our present,” per The Hill.

“And so if a Republican, who may even be sincere in saying, ‘I want us all to live together,’ doesn’t have a plan for how do we address crippling generational poverty that is a consequence of hundreds of years of racism in this society, and we need to do something about that,” Obama said. “If that candidate is not willing to acknowledge that, again and again, we’ve seen discrimination in everything from … getting a job to buying a house to how the criminal justice system operates.”

“If somebody’s not proposing, both acknowledging and proposing, elements that say, ‘No, we can’t just ignore all that and pretend as if everything’s equal and fair,” he continued. “We actually have to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.’ If they’re not doing that, then I think people are rightly skeptical.”

Scott, the only Black candidate vying for the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has frequently asserted that his success as a Black man is an indicator of the progress the country has made.

The former president noted Republican candidates tend to water down the lingering effects of slavery to validate that America is great.

“There may come a time where there’s somebody in the Republican Party that is more serious about actually addressing some of the deep inequality that still exists in our society that tracks race and is a consequence of our racial history. And if that happens, I think that would be fantastic. I haven’t yet seen it,” Obama said.

The South Carolina senator responded to Obama’s comments, saying he missed his opportunity to bring the country together as president.

“[Obama] missed a softball moving at slow speed with a big bat. … You can’t miss this opportunity,” the GOP candidate said, adding “America was hungry for bringing our country together, this coalition building, where you can see Black kids and white kids and red ones and brown ones, as MLK about, joining hands and singing with new meaning, ‘My country ‘tis of thee.’”

Scott also took to Twitter to denounce Obama’s critique.

“Let us not forget we are a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. Democrats deny our progress to protect their power,” he wrote. “The Left wants you to believe faith in America is a fraud and progress in our nation is a myth.”

“The truth of MY life disproves the lies of the radical Left,” Scott continued. “We live in a country where little Black and Brown boys and girls can be President of the United States. The truth is – we’ve had one and the good news is — we will have another.”

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