A Republican congressional candidate in Georgia bowed out of the race after calling himself a white nationalist in the wake of the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shootings.
Donnie Bolena, 54, announced that he was withdrawing from an attempt to unseat Rep. Lucy McBath, who is black. In a 22-minute video posted to Facebook, Bolena defended his use of the term “white nationalist,” but said that President Trump’s reelection campaign reached out to the Georgia Republican Party following the remarks.
“I was told, ‘Donnie, if you stay in it, and CNN breaks this story, you’re going to hurt President Trump, and you’re going to hurt District 6, and you’re going to hurt the country. They will use this to destroy every Republican,’” he said in the video.
“I said I was a proud white nationalist,” Bolena said. “Due to the shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, I was very aggravated and very mad at the way the liberal media comes after conservatives. It comes after our Second Amendment.”
Bolena spoke to the Washington Post and said that he misunderstood what the term “white nationalist” means to most Americans.
“I was ignorant to the idea of what the rest of the country’s idea of a white nationalist is,” he said Thursday. “The president said he was a nationalist. I’m a nationalist just like him. He’s white, and I’m white. Does that make us killers? Does that make us crazy?”
“If you’re a white person and a nationalist, you’re all of a sudden a killer?” he added.
Bolena claims he has received death threats and said he would leave the Republican Party but would still support Trump under what he dubbed the “Ultra Conservative Party.”
