David French, who flirted with a run at the presidency earlier this year, said Sunday that members of his family have been harassed because of his opposition to Trump.
“When you’re talking about images of my African-American daughter in slave fields, or in a gas chamber, what do you call that but racist,” said French, a writer for the conservative National Review, while on MSNBC Sunday.
French wrote about the online abuse towards his youngest daughter, an African-American adopted from Ethiopia, in a recent article in the National Review.
“I saw images of my daughter’s face in gas chambers, with a smiling Trump in a Nazi uniform preparing to press a button and kill her. I saw her face Photoshopped into images of slaves,” he wrote.
French said on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” Sunday that Trump’s rhetoric and focus on political correctness has helped embolden the online abuse.
“They are capitalizing on this anti-political correctness side of the Trump movement to stoke and excuse some of the most vile communications,” said French, who was briefly courted by several conservatives to run an independent campaign for president. French declined such a run.
He added that it wasn’t just Twitter, which he said has become a cesspool.
“It’s leaking outside of Twitter,” French said.
He noted that some journalists covering Trump are “carrying handguns for the first time.”
“This has put real fear into people and it has to be exposed and it has to be condemned,” French said.
