A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate was booed while appearing on live television Friday for saying African-Americans should stop “begging for federal government scraps.”
Chris McDaniel was asked how he would convince black voters in Mississippi that he’s “not a danger to them” based on his positions on the Confederate flag and Robert E. Lee and his view that gun violence stems from hip-hop.
“I am going to going to ask them, after 100 years, after 100 years of relying on big government to save you, where are you today? After 100 years of begging for federal government scraps, where are you today?” he responded, defending his views.
The response was met with audible boos from the audience, prompting McDaniel to say he was speaking about the state of Mississippi as a whole, not just African-Americans.
“I mean the state of Mississippi. I’m talking about the state of Mississippi,” he said.
McDaniel chided the Clarion-Ledger newspaper after it reported his comments.
“It was an 11-minute segment. And that one sentence is your primary focus? I easily clarified my position — that is, Mississippi being the dead last state of the Union in terms of wealth and economic prosperity, based on outdated economic models,” he said.
McDaniel is running against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, former U.S. Rep. Mike Espy, and Democrat Tobey Bartee in a special election to fill the final two years of former Sen. Thad Cochran’s term.
