South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is writing a book with his friend and fellow South Carolinian, Tim Scott (R-SC).
The book is supposed to focus on their “unlikely” friendship, and the thirst for conciliation that the two men believe most Americans currently have. While both men are Republicans, Gowdy admits that they disagree on quite a few issues, but that isn’t a problem for their friendship. In fact, just the opposite – their disagreements help make their friendship more stable and honest.
(The relevant clip starts at about 4 minutes into the video.)
REP. TREY GOWDY: Tim Scott is the best person in all of politics… And as you two know, because you stop by our dinner table, he and I are virtually inseparable.
We also didn’t know each other in 2010 when we came in as freshmen, and we have different backgrounds, we have different life experiences, we have different views on some pretty serious issues, but we have just chosen to have a friendship some would call unlikely because we are more interested in the conciliation than we are the conflict.
So what we want to do is share the story of our relationship and try to encourage our fellow citizens. I do think there is a hunger for conciliation, for unity in this country. Contrast is fine. I’m glad we don’t all pull for the Cowboys, I’m glad we don’t all go watch the same movie at the same time, but the contrast has morphed into conflict. And what I hear almost everywhere I go is this sense of angst, this divisiveness.
We are the United States of America, so I would love for us to spend almost as much time celebrating what we have in common as we do harping on the differences.
Timmy and I, our hair is different, we come from different backgrounds, life experiences.
JASON CHAFFETZ: Your hair is different on an almost daily basis, so that’s true.
GOWDY: My hair is different from my own hair. But if you put up a picture of Tim Scott, you can see we have differences, but we made a conscious effort to celebrate the things that we have in common.
Whether it is Joey Kennedy or Seth Moulton, or Kyrsten Sinema, Tulsi Gabbard, or Peter Welch, those are all Democrats on the other side of the aisle. I know this story doesn’t get out, and some of your viewers frankly don’t want to hear it. But 99.9% of us get along really well in our personal interactions. It is just we have this hyper-focus on conflict in this country, so the fact that we get along doesn’t make the news. What does make the news is when there is one member on another side yelling at each other that night.
I’m interested in conciliation and unity and what binds us together as fellow Americans. And that is what Timmy and I want to write about.
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