We have to attack those things which stand in the way of America progress. And what stands in the way of American progress right now is the federal government.

After watching the video, the senseless shooting and taking of Walter Scott's life was absolutely unnecessary and avoidable. My heart aches for the family and our North Charleston community. I will be watching this case closely.

If you look at the fact that the best chance we have for a good economy is the private sector. The government cannot create jobs. If the government could create jobs, then Communism would have worked. But didn't work. So what we have to do is allow the private sector and the entrepreneurial spirit to lead us back to a job-filled recovery.

As I have traveled throughout my Congressional district, the one thing I heard loud and clear was simply please stop spending money you do not have, rein in spending, live within a budget.

I know that my grandfather is 92 years old. And he has seen this country evolve in amazing ways. He looks at South Carolina and he says, wow, what an amazing state that we have the blessing to live within because of the evolution.

What we`re seeing in so many of the counterprotests. We`re seeing America rise in a way that it did not in the `60s, which I think is powerful and symbolic to the rest of the world, that we reject the darkness and we embrace the light.

We are in a very critical and sensitive time in this nation. We need our president to sit down with folks who have a personal experience, a deep connection to the horror and the pain of this country`s provocative racial history. If the president wants to have a better understanding and appreciation for what he should do next, he needs to hear something from folks who have gone through this painful history. Without that personal connection to the painful past, it will be hard for him to regain that moral authority from my perspective.