GOP Sen. Mike Rounds praises presidential candidate Tim Scott as 'the closest to a Ronald Reagan' in the 2024 race: 'None of us are ever going to be ashamed of supporting him'

• Sen. Mike Rounds praised Sen. Tim Scott as "the closest to a Ronald Reagan" in the 2024 GOP WH race.
• Rounds recalled comparing Scott to the GOP icon during an interview with The Washington Post.

Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who has endorsed the presidential campaign of fellow Sen. Tim Scott, said that the South Carolina lawmaker is "the closest to a Ronald Reagan" of any Republican currently in the 2024 presidential race.

Rounds — who alongside fellow Sen. John Thune of South Dakota are the only Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber currently backing Scott — remarked that the South Carolinian brings a range of attractive qualities to the GOP field that are reminiscent of the conservative icon who occupied the Oval Office from 1981 to 1989.

Rounds and Thune worked with Scott on the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, respectively, and both came away with an enduring admiration for their colleague, as Rounds expressed to The Washington Post. Their support of Scott is a significant departure from that of many congressional Republicans, who have either lined up behind former President Donald Trump or Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — or have remained neutral.

"I think he's the right guy for the job, positive," Rounds said of Scott during a conversation with Thune. "He's the closest to a [new] Ronald Reagan, in terms of his excitement, his ability to communicate, his forward-thinking, his understanding of defense issues, his understanding of business."

"None of us are ever going to be ashamed of supporting him," Rounds added.