NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Ali Vitali spent a few minutes peppering South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott with questions about ex-President Donald Trump, and Scott spent these minutes changing the topic.

Scott has mushy-launched a 2024 presidential marketing campaign this week, and amongst the interviews he did used to be an intensive sit-down with Vitali.

But 98 seconds in, the subject of Trump got here up, and Scott spent a couple of minutes thereafter refusing a number of helpings of bait unless he instructed Vitali “we’re speaking about what I wish to do, and also you’re talking about what others need to do,” and she moved on:

ALI VITALI: Have you ever talked to former President Trump about this in any respect?

TIM SCOTT: I have talked to no candidates about what I will have to do with my life and for the American folks.

ALI VITALI: Including your fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley?

TIM SCOTT: The best way I look at it’s that there are 330 million American citizens in the market about 150 million Americans have a chance to vote. Those are the folks that should be talking to you about their priorities.

ALI VITALI: I believe one of the open questions right here is you take a look at the polls, you take a look at the truth that in this Republican box, President Trump is type of the man to beat. Why must he not wish to be the nominee of the party once more?

TIM SCOTT: Some of the things I’m listening to quite a bit on the Religion in The usa Tour is that they’re serious about a very powerful concerns in their lives is what’s using their decisions. And probably the most important concerns of their lives is the industrial fact that President Biden appears to have found out a blueprint for how one can wreck The usa. And in that blueprint, it talks about how we see ourselves at 13 and a half of percent inflation. Who fights that having had the possibility of in fact writing the tax invoice that we handed in 2017, I wrote the personal side of that tax invoice decreasing taxes with the aid of 70 % for single father or mother moms 60 % for dual profits households. Due to the fact happen is without doubt one of the things that resonates is I have actual solutions, and cleared the path and so I’m taking a look forward to having an opportunity to distinction with the place I am and what I believe with the participants in the race.

ALI VITALI: However that was once a Trump invoice. I imply, where are you totally different from him as a result of innately by using working, you’re announcing, “I believe I is usually a better president than him.”

TIM SCOTT: In fact, I feel it’s very simple. The American people are looking for management that’s positive, positive, and anchored in conservatism. The invoice that I wrote, I am thankful that I wrote the bill. Once we talked concerning the possibility zones that’s caused $200 billion into the poorest communities. I wrote the bill. So there’s a very important part of being the architect of the rules. And I’m grateful that the people that we’re talking to throughout the usa, it if truth be told resonates. So whereas individuals want to have a dialog about other candidates. I’m going to have a conversation about what I will do to lead us to the type of the longer term that I would like the usa to have.

ALI VITALI: But I think inevitably with a view to get to a common election towards Joe Biden you do have to move against the opposite Republicans which are in this field. It sounds like you’re chuffed to take credit score for the elements of the Trump administration that you simply helped with and went well with, however is there anything that you assume should be performed another way?

TIM SCOTT: I’m most effective taking credit score for what I did and what I wrote. I’d simply simply say what I’ve already said, which is that the American individuals continue to have an opportunity to weigh in on what their priorities are. My agenda thus far has met their priorities and so long as it continues to take action, they’ll have a choice to make. And when it’s time to make that possibility, I imagine they’ll make a choice me.

ALI VITALI: I want to ask you, though, about something that the former president stated on Fox namely, he mentioned that Putin may be very good, that Kim Jong Un is high of the road and that Xi is brilliant. Is that the way that a commander in chief will have to be talking about our adversaries?

TIM SCOTT: All what we all know is that you have a look at the brand new axis of evil it starts with China and President Xi contains President Putin, and you indisputably see the role of Iran as neatly. And so what we attempt to do is discuss why China is such an existential threat to our country, and whether or not it’s the failure of President Biden because it relates to balloons breaching our sovereign borders or whether it’s the failure of us to prevent them from stealing our mental property, or whether it’s their capacity to sink nations around the globe into debt that they may be able to never pay again. Whether it’s the way forward for the Made in China 2025 or the Wuhan lab, we have an exact threat from an adversary on our doorsteps. We’d like leadership that pushes again in opposition to that. So long as we try this then we’re going to have every other American century. If we don’t do this, we gained’t.

ALI VITALI: But Trump’s now not pushing back on that.

TIM SCOTT: Neatly, we’re talking about what I wish to do, and you’re talking about what others wish to do. So I wish to keep talking about what I can keep an eye on and not what others keep watch over.

Watch above by means of NBC Information.

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