While appearing on Fox News Radio’s “Guy Benson Show” on Wednesday, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) said that “there is a plot to stop conservative values from percolating in the poorest corridors and in minority communities,” and “liberal elites want to grab power by using the issue of race and the issue of control to determine the future of this nation.”

Scott made this comment while talking about the backlash he got for his response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

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“What I’ve learned though, Guy, is that there is a plot to stop conservative values from percolating in the poorest corridors and in minority communities, and they heard what I said and they saw it as a threat,” Scott said. “And so, they responded with a vitriol that is unusual and I am used to some very high levels of pain, misery, and agony in the response to the craziness from the left. But here’s the truth…America is simply not a racist country. To deny that is to deny reality. Have we had issues with race and is there racism in our country? Absolutely, but [are] the majority of Americans, is the nation as a whole a racist country? Undeniably no.”

“The liberal elites want to grab power by using the issue of race and the issue of control to determine the future of this nation,” he added. “I believe that, too often, their focus isn’t on solving the racial issues of the past — or the present, it’s about gaining more power by talking about that. That’s one of the reasons why they spend 90% of their time in the rearview mirror and only 10% of their time in the windshield.”

In this same interview, Scott also said that he is “cautiously optimistic” about the prospects of passing bipartisan police reform legislation in the near future.

“I’m cautiously optimistic if they live within the parameters that I have set, number one, we will not demonize law enforcement officers,” Scott said. “Qualified immunity for their individual liability cannot be on the table. It is too hard to understand the life, the day in the life of an officer for us to negotiate on their individual liability. Number two, we must never break the fused relationship between communities of color and those officers with character coming in to respond to crises. If we keep those two as the pillars of this conversation, we have a good chance of getting to a solution.”

“The Democrats, if the Democrats keep fighting to defund the police, if they keep fighting to demonize the police, have they continue to disregard the actual necessity of law enforcement officers,” he added. “You’ll see Portland, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, as classic examples of what happens when you demonize and disregard, as well as defund the police. Violent crime spikes, murders, spike and every other negative of principle and indicator all go in the wrong direction.”

Check out Scott’s full interview below.