Roger Stone, a longtime political ally of Donald Trump, used a racial slur while speaking to the host of the radio show, The Mo’Kelly Show, who is Black.
Stone uttered the racial insult after host Morris W. O’Kelly asked him about Trump commuting Stone’s prison sentence last week—and whether or not Trump was showing Stone any favoritism due to the nature of their relationship and Stone’s proximity to Trump.
According to The New York Times, the host asked: “There are thousands of people treated unfairly daily, how your number just happened to come up in the lottery, I am guessing it was more than just luck, Roger, right?”
Stone, who was conducting the interview by phone, replied by muttering: “arguing with this Negro,” though it was hard to understand the beginning of his sentence. It appeared as if Stone didn’t intend to speak into the phone, but was saying that to himself or someone else who was with him.
When O’Kelly asked him to repeat himself, Stone sighed in response and didn’t say anything for around 40 seconds. Stone then seemed to act as if the connection had been interrupted and he denied saying the slur. “I did not, you’re out of your mind,” Stone told O’Kelly.
Trump commuted Stone’s prison sentence on July 10, just days before his prison term was slated to begin. Stone was facing a 40-month sentence for seven felony crimes connected to obstruction of a congressional investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign, as well as potential connections to Russia.
O’Kelly chose to keep the interview going, even after the awful line of conversation. When Stone had left the air, O’Kelly told his listeners that he continued the interview because it was his job “to keep him talking for your benefit, as the audience, and my benefit to have that conversation.”
“The only thing that I felt was true, honest and sincere that Roger Stone said was in that moment that he thought I was not listening,” O’Kelly added. “All of my professional accolades, all my professional bona fides went out the window because as far as he was concerned, he was talking and arguing with a Negro.”
The host told The Times that Stone’s insult was “clear, it was discernible, and it was unmistakable.” O’Kelly said that he's spoken with Stone before and didn’t have him on the show to anger him. O’Kelly told the publication that he was “disappointed and dismayed that in 2020, that’s where we are.”
“It’s the diet version of the N-word, but as an African-American man, it’s something I deal with pretty frequently,” he said. “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.”
According to the liberal-leaning media watchdog, Media Matters for America, it’s been alleged that Stone has used such language before, and has even wiped his Twitter account clean of any inappropriate or offensive tweets.
The Los Angeles-based Mo’Kelly Show airs on Saturday and Sunday nights on KFI-AM640 and iHeartRadio.
