The Trump associate was being grilled on numerous issues on the Mo’Kelly Show.<\/b>
\nRoger Stone, a political operative whose 40-month prison sentence was commuted this month by President Trump, his longtime friend, used the racial slur \u201cNegro\u201d on air while verbally sparring with a Los Angeles-based Black radio host.
The exchange occurred on Saturday\u2019s Mo\u2019Kelly Show, whose host \u2013 Morris O\u2019Kelly \u2013 grilled Stone on his conviction for lying to Congress, tampering with witnesses and obstructing the House investigation into whether Trump\u2019s campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
O\u2019Kelly on his program\u2019s website said \u201cStone could have reached for any pejorative, but unfortunately went there,\u201d adding that \u201cStone offered an unfiltered, unvarnished one-sentence expression of how he saw the journalist interviewing him.\u201d
O\u2019Kelly characterized \u201cNegro\u201d as the \u201clow-calorie version of the N-Word.\u201d
Stone\u2019s attorney on Sunday said he was unaware of the broadcast and had no immediate comment.
Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison, but Trump commuted that sentence on July 10 \u2013 just days before Stone was to report for detention.
As O\u2019Kelly asserted that Stone\u2019s commutation was because of his friendship with Trump, Stone\u2019s voice goes faint but can be heard uttering that he was \u201carguing with this Negro.\u201d
O\u2019Kelly then asks Stone to repeat the comment, but Stone goes momentarily silent.
The first part of Stone\u2019s statement was not entirely audible, but the radio program transcribed the complete sentences as, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m arguing with this Negro.\u201d
O\u2019Kelly persisted on having Stone respond.
\u201cI\u2019m sorry you\u2019re arguing with whom? I thought we were just having a spirited conversation. What happened?\u201d O\u2019Kelly said. \u201cYou said something about \u2018Negro.\u2019\u201d
Stone said he had not. \u201cYou\u2019re out of your mind,\u201d he said.
The interview then continued.
In a statement, Stone defended himself by saying that anyone familiar with him \u201cknows I despise racism!\u201d
\u201cMr. O\u2019Kelly needs a good peroxide cleaning of the wax in his ears because at no time did I call him a negro,\u201d Stone said, using lowercase for the word. \u201cThat said, Mr. O\u2019Kelly needs to spend a little more time studying black history and institutions. The word negro is far from a slur.\u201d
He cited the United Negro College Fund and the historical use of the word.
At one time, \u201cNegro\u201d was common in the American vernacular to describe African Americans. By the late 1960s, however, the word was scorned by activists in favor of such descriptors as \u201cBlack.\u201d
These days, the antiquated word is widely viewed as derogatory in most uses.
In his statement, Stone noted that some of the program\u2019s audio was garbled and alleged that there was cross-talk from another radio show and that his sound was cut off.
During the program, Stone said the president acted out of compassion and that the jury that weighed his case was tainted.
\u201cI did not get a fair trial,\u201d Stone said.
\u201cMy life was in imminent danger,\u201d Stone said, saying he was at risk of being infected by the coronavirus in prison. \u201cI think the president did this as an act of compassion. He did it as an act of mercy.\u201d
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