Former Republican candidate for Alabama Secretary of State Chris Horn is defending U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) against criticism by Democrats and the media.
Tuberville is being called a racist by some, including former Sen. Doug Jones, for comments he made during former President Donald Trump’s rally in Nevada last Saturday.
“Some people say, ‘Well, they’re soft on crime.’ No. They’re not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime. They want crime,” Tuberville said at the rally. “They want crime because they want to take over what you’ve got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! They are not owed that.”
Monday on WVNN’s “The Dale Jackson Show,” Horn pushed back against the criticism against his “personal friend” Tuberville.
“I know him personally,” Horn said. “He helped me with my campaign. I’ve been in small rooms and big rooms with coach. He’s always been a personal friend. I’m really, really hurt … because I know coaches heart and I’m really at a loss for words.”
Horn said he has never seen anything in Tuberville’s past that would suggest the senator is a racist.
“I believe that this is an opportunity for us to have a real honest conversation about coach,” he said. “Let’s go back. Coach before he came to Auburn University, coach was at Ole Miss … The biggest controversy in the history of the Southeastern Conference was the Confederate Flag, and coach himself, along with the president, orchestrated the Confederate flag of not being a celebrated symbol within the stadium because of the impact it had on some of the black student athletes and their families.
“That was something he received death threats for, people wanted him to lose his job, but that was the biggest demonstration and really the issue of him showing all of America where he stood when it comes to race.”
Horn said this is just another example of Democrats trying to play the race card in order to win elections.
“They need an animus to be able to say ‘Alabama is racist, Alabama will always be racist,’ he argued, “and then they tie that to Trump and then they tie that to all Republicans. That’s the way they get votes.”
Horn said it was obvious to him that Tuberville was talking specifically about Democrats’ soft on crime policies.
“When he said reparations he was talking about give backs … it has nothing to do with slave ships … it has everything to do with crime and punishment and how people don’t want to be accountable for their crimes,” Horn said. “They just don’t, they just don’t. They just believe that you should have weed and smoke around, you should be able to break out of cars, let them out of jail. That’s the culture, and unfortunately they don’t have anything else.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
