Campaign removes ad with supporter who posted racist rants on Facebook
LOS ANGELES — Rep. Steve Knight’s campaign on Thursday took down an advertisement featuring a local veteran who regularly posts racist, anti-Muslim and antiSemitic comments on social media, a day after the congressman’s camp said it would not remove the political spot.
The ad was no longer displayed on the home page of Knight’s campaign website or on his Facebook page.
The Republican congressman from Palmdale said Thursday that his office had not been aware that the veteran, David Brayton of Santa Clarita, posted inflammatory and violent messages from multiple public accounts. He did not condemn Brayton’s comments.
“We don’t say anything that is anything near racist about anyone,” he said when asked what he would say to constituents in the groups targeted by Brayton. “Our office is very open. We try and help anyone who walks in, and that’s the way we go about business.”
Speaking after a veterans luncheon in Simi Valley, Knight said he could not recall when or how he met Brayton, and that more than a year has elapsed since his office helped Brayton deal with severe medical issues.
In addition to posts calling for Trump supporters to take up arms against protesters, Brayton has posted doctored images of Democratic leaders, including one with former President Barack Obama with a noose around his neck and former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being led to a gallows. He has posted disparaging comments about black people and Muslims, and the profile picture on one of his three Facebook accounts was captioned “Hear me Islam. I will slaughter you with your own knife.”
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Brayton, a former Air Force medic, stood by all of his posts, but denied that any of them were racist or anti-Semitic.
In the 30-second ad for the Knight campaign, Brayton sits next to the congressman and praises Knight for helping him get a lung transplant. The 64-year-old veteran wears a red shirt with the word “infidel” imprinted in the American flag, an apparent dig at Muslims; a Latin saying under it translates as “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
Knight said he didn’t notice Brayton’s shirt, and that the veteran had never made comments to him hinting at his beliefs.
“Well, when somebody comes into our office, we don’t ask them if they’re a Republican or a Democrat,” he said. “We don’t look at anything that they do. We ask them how we can help them.”
Matt Rexroad, Knight’s campaign strategist, had said Wednesday that there was no reason to vet Brayton’s social media postings before putting him in the ad and that Knight had no plans to take down the ad.