One might imagine that someone who had just avoided time in prison due to the president commuting their sentence would be on their best behavior after that commutation, and wouldn’t do anything quite so egregious and offensive as, say, using a racial slur in a live interview. Most people would certainly not do that under any circumstances, for obvious reasons.
And then there’s Roger Stone. Stone has spent the last few decades working for high-profile Republicans like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. He also infamously has a Nixon back tattoo — one of many things he’s infamous for. With this radio appearance, he can add “racist remarks made while live on the air” to that list.
At The New York Times, Aimee Ortiz and Marie Fazio have the details on Stone’s controversial appearance. The interview took place on Saturday night; interviewing Stone was radio host Morris W. O’Kelly, also known as Mo’Kelly. O’Kelly is Black; Stone is white. Stone was answering O’Kelly’s interview questions over the phone.
When O’Kelly pressed Stone about his political connections, the interview took a contentious turn:
Mr. Stone, who was speaking by phone, responded by muttering: “arguing with this Negro”; the beginning of his sentence was hard to hear. It sounded as if Mr. Stone were not speaking directly into the phone, but rather to himself or someone in the room with him.
When Mr. O’Kelly asked him to repeat what he said, Mr. Stone let out a sigh, then remained silent for almost 40 seconds.
The interview continued after that, with Stone disputing that he had used offensive language. For his part, O’Kelly is skeptical. “If there’s a takeaway from the conversation, it is that Roger Stone gave an unvarnished look into what is in the heart of many Americans today,” he told the Times.
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