Former NBA star Charles Barkley said on Saturday said Republican candidate Roy Moore, who is facing multiple allegations of sexual impropriety, should have been disqualified from his race for Alabama’s vacant U.S. Senate because of his ties to Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist.
Barkley, who is an Alabama native, said that because Bannon is a “white separatist,” Moore should not be running for political office as he would not be able to represent the diverse state population.
“I don’t understand why that’s even a question,” Barkley said to a reporter who asked him how Alabamians should vote for the Senate seat. “I mean Roy Moore is running with Steve Bannon as his right-hand man, who is a white separatist. I’m not even going to get into the women stuff, but how can you be a white separatist and represent all the constituents in your state? Everybody is going crazy over these sexual allegations, but Roy Moore, to me, when he bought in Steve Bannon, should have been disqualified … How can you have a guy who is running with a white separatist running for a political office? We have a lot of black people in this state who are amazing people. But to run a campaign with a guy as your chief advocate who is a white nationalist, a white separatist, that should have disqualified Roy Moore way before this women stuff came up.”
Charles BARKLEY (Alabama native) on Roy Moore–> “How can you be a white separatist and represent all the constituents of your state?…Roy Moore is running with Steve Bannon as his right hand…If I lived here, I’d vote for Doug Jones.” pic.twitter.com/bUJrDdKZm3
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) November 25, 2017
Bannon is a major supporter of Moore’s campaign, even though Trump endorsed Sen. Luther Strange during the primary. Moore in recent weeks has been accused by nine different women of making unwanted sexual advances when they were in their teens and he was in his 30s. Some women have accused him of sexual assault.
Several Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have asked Moore to resign, saying that they believe the accounts of the women. Moore has denied the accusations and refuses to leave the race, though he has not denied attempts to date women who reached a legal age of consent or of dating younger women with their mother’s permission.
Trump has said through White House statements that it is up to Alabamians to choose who their senator is going to be, but he also told reporters that he didn’t want a liberal Democrat in the Senate seat.
“We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones,” Trump said. “I’ve looked at his record. It’s terrible on crime. It’s terrible on the border. It’s terrible on military,”
Prior to becoming the campaign manager for Trump and then going on to serve in the White House, Bannon was the executive chairman of Breitbart News — a position he returned to after leaving the White House. Bannon has called Breitbart the “platform for the alt-right,” which has led to charges from opponents that he has aligned himself with White supremacists. Certain stories and opinion pieces published on Breitbart have been accused of being racist, sexist and xenophobic.
Bannon describes himself as an economic nationalist and has strongly supported reductions in immigration and restrictions on free trade.
Barkley was speaking at Auburn University, where the Iron Bowl football matchup is taking place Saturday between Auburn and the University of Alabama. Barkley, who played basketball at Auburn in the early 1980s, was present on campus for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness outside the Auburn basketball arena.
Asked for what his message to Republicans would be, Barkley replied: “It has nothing to do about being a Republican or Democrat. It’s about doing the right thing. You can’t have a guy running for political office who is a white separatist, plain and simple … It has nothing to do with being Democrat, Republican, liberal or conservative. The guy has a guy running with him who is a white separatist. That’s immoral and wrong.”
Barkley admitted he didn’t know much about Doug Jones, Moore’s Democratic opponent, but said if he lived in Alabama he would vote for him.
Jones, a graduate of Alabama who was present at the football game, declined to comment on whether he agreed that Moore was a “white separatist.”
“I’ve told the media I’m not going to call people names, that’s not my style,” Jones said in an NBC News interview. “We’re just not going to do that. We’re going to talk about issues. We’re going to accept the Barkley endorsement today and be really happy about it.”
Moore, who graduated from the university’s law school, was not expected to attend.
