North Carolina GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger said protesters in Charlotte are motivated by racism rather than anger over the fatal police shooting of Keith Scott, an African-American man.

“The grievance in their mind is the animus, the anger,” Pittenger said during an interview with the BBC. “They hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not.”…

“We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare, where we put people in bondage so they can’t be all that they’re capable of being,” Pittenger added. “America is a country of opportunity, of freedom, of liberty. It didn’t become that way because of a great government that provided everything for everyone.”