Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Black radio host calls out Stone for using racial slur

- Bobcaina Calvan

Roger Stone, a political operative whose 40-month prison sentence was commuted this month by President Donald Trump, his longtime friend, used the racial slur “Negro” on air while verbally sparring with a Los Angelesbas­ed Black radio host.

The exchange occurred on Saturday’s Mo’Kelly Show, whose host – Morris O’Kelly – grilled Stone on his conviction for lying to Congress, tampering with witnesses and obstructin­g the House investigat­ion into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.

O’Kelly, on his program’s website, said “Stone could have reached for any pejorative, but unfortunat­ely went there,” adding that “Stone offered an unfiltered, unvarnishe­d one-sentence expression of how he saw the journalist interviewi­ng him.”

O’Kelly characteri­zed “Negro” as the “low-calorie version of the N-word.”

Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison, but Trump commuted that sentence on July 10 – just days before Stone was to report for detention.

As O’Kelly asserted that Stone’s commutatio­n was because of his friendship with Trump, Stone’s voice goes faint but can be heard uttering that he was “arguing with this Negro.”

O’Kelly then asks Stone to repeat the comment, but Stone goes momentaril­y silent.

The first part of Stone’s statement was not entirely audible, but the radio program transcribe­d the complete sentences as, “I can’t believe I’m arguing with this Negro.”

In a statement, Stone defended himself by saying that anyone familiar with him “knows I despise racism!”

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