South Carolina Republicans slammed President Joe Biden for what they say is a fear-based appearance in the Palmetto State designed to distract from his failures in office.

Biden spoke Monday afternoon at Mother Emanuel AME Church, the site of a racially motivated 2015 shooting that left nine people dead, and he said that some on the Right are engaged in a second lost cause, referencing the way Southerners referred to the Civil War in its immediate aftermath.

But the appearance didn’t sit well with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

“Fear is a common denominator in politics,” Scott said in a video posted while Biden was speaking. “People of color, Americans all across this nation, are losing confidence in this president because the economy is volatile. Crime is raging. Education for the poorest kids in America seems elusive. And what does President Biden do? Comes to Charleston to stoke fear.”

Mace, who represents the areas surrounding Charleston, released a video ahead of Biden’s appearance saying the president is “using the pulpit of a church where a tragedy took place in order to further divide our nation on race.”

She pointed to high inflation, chaos at the southern border, and foreign wars as evidence that Biden wants to hide from his record.

“That’s not what Charleston is about,” Mace said. “We unify in the face of adversity, we unify in the face of challenges, and we’re not going to allow a president to come in here and divide us, no matter what.”

Biden referenced Haley, though not by name, during his remarks by crediting those gathered with removing the Confederate flag from the state’s Capitol grounds and later saying, “Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know — slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There’s no negotiation about that.”

The remark referred to a controversy Haley caused by failing to mention slavery in answering a question about the causes of the Civil War. She later clarified she thought it was “a given” that everyone associated slavery with the war.

Haley’s statement noted that as governor, she led efforts to get the Confederate flag removed, and she was the governor tasked with responding to the 2015 shooting. Highlighting Biden’s record on race, the statement accused the press of having a double standard.

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“The media, however, completely ignores Joe Biden’s history of praising segregationists, demeaning black people, lying about his participation in the Civil Rights Movement, and perpetuating negative racial stereotypes,” Haley’s campaign said. “This list spans Biden’s long political career from the 1970s to today.”

Biden repeated one of his controversial statements during the speech, saying he “started a civil rights movement” at Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware. He has made similar remarks in the past about participating in the movement, most of which have been shot down by fact-checking websites.