Kleefisch backs off anthem claim
Lt. Gov. alleged Barnes knelt in protest, said she heard it from someone else
MADISON - GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch backed off Tuesday from her false claims her opponent knelt during the national anthem, saying she now believes him after making the allegation without evidence.
Kleefisch first alleged two weeks ago that Mandela Barnes knelt during the national anthem — suggesting Barnes was protesting the anthem over treatment of black Americans by police and other government institutions.
Kleefisch said she heard the claim from someone else but wouldn’t say who it was. Barnes said he didn’t consider her comments an apology.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry cause you’re not,” Barnes said in response, quoting lyrics from pop star Rihanna’s “Take a Bow.” “You’re only sorry you got caught.”
Kleefisch dropped her claim Tuesday, a day after she claimed she was at an event with Barnes when he knelt during the anthem.
“I was looking at the flag and not my opponent,” Kleefisch said on WTMJ-AM (620). “And I was told later that he kneeled briefly and I repeated what someone else told me. And he has said that he didn’t do it and I have to believe him and I have to apologize for repeating something I was told.”
Kleefisch didn’t say if she planned to apologize directly to Barnes or was doing so only as part of her on-air interview with conservative talk radio host Steve Scaffidi.
Afterward, Barnes said in an interview he just wanted to move on to “talk about the real issues that she tried to create a diversion from.”
“It’s not necessarily apologizing to me — it’s apologizing because you got caught,” Barnes said. “It wasn’t the hot take (she) thought it would be.”
On Monday, some Democrats accused Kleefisch of race-baiting, since most of the NFL players who have knelt during the anthem have been AfricanAmerican and have done so to protest racial injustice.
Kleefisch first made her false claim two weeks ago in a Twitter post. She repeated it and elaborated on it Monday by telling reporters she heard that Barnes took a knee during the national anthem at the opening of the state fair in August.
Kleefisch and Barnes attended that event with hundreds of others. Kleefisch said she didn’t see what happened herself because her eyes were on the flag.
Kleefisch was unable to produce any evidence that Barnes had knelt during the anthem in the two weeks since she first made the claim and Barnes called her a liar.
Democrats who were there on Monday told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they did not see Barnes kneeling.
GOP Gov. Scott Walker, who has led the state with Kleefisch for the last eight years, was also at the event. One of his aides said Walker was looking at the flag, not Barnes, during the event.
Barnes is running on a ticket with state schools Superintendent Tony Evers against Walker and Kleefisch.
Evers and Barnes have said they support the rights of football players and others to protest racial injustice during the national anthem if they wish. Walker and Kleefisch oppose those protests and have tried to make them an issue in their re-election bid.