Roger Stone appeared to use a racial slur during a live interview Saturday with a Black radio host who pressed him on whether he got special treatment from President Trump. Morris W. O’Kelly, the host of The Mo’Kelly Show, told Stone he believed his close ties with the president “weighed more heavily” in his commutation than Trump simply wanting to right a wrong in the justice system.
"There are thousands of people treated unfairly daily. Hell, your number just happened to come up in the lottery. I'm guessing it was more than just luck, Roger, right?" O’Kelly said.
After a pause on Stone’s end, he apparently began speaking to someone else with him during the interview. The first part of what he said was muffled, but he could clearly be heard complaining about “arguing with this Negro,” apparently in reference to O’Kelly.
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After a prolonged silence on his end, Stone then reappeared and said, “Uhh, you’re back.”
“I was talking and you said something about ‘Negro’ so I wasn’t exactly sure,” O’Kelly said.
“I did not,” Stone shot back, “You’re out of your mind.” He went on to dismiss the accusation with an exasperated “whatever.”
O’Kelly barely skipped a beat afterwards and kept the rest of the interview civil. In the second hour of the show, however, he explained why he kept going.
“I’m still processing,” he said, clearly rattled.
“My job as I see it, was to keep Roger Stone on the phone… My job was to keep him talking for your benefit,” he told listeners.
“The only thing that I felt was true, honest, and sincere that Roger Stone said was in that moment when he felt I was not listening,” he said. “As far as he was concerned, he was talking and arguing with a Negro.”
O’Kelly said he wasn’t all that surprised to hear the epithet coming from Stone.
“If you think about the recent allegations by Mary Trump” that the N-word was used in her family growing up, he said, “it kinda fits.”
“Negro is N-word light. It’s the low-calorie version, the diet version. He could’ve reached for any pejorative in the world… but what did he reach for? And that’s why I think it was sincere. It was the truest belief he had in his head, and he didn’t expect me to hear it.”
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Stone again denied using a racial epithet.
“Categorically false like almost everything reported in The Daily Beast. Seems obvious that Kelly seeks to boost his pathetic ratings with a fabricated claim,” said Stone, who did not explain how something listeners heard during a live show could have been fabricated. “Anyone who is aware of my 30 years of opposition to the racist war on drugs will realize how fabricated this is. Now I challenge you to use my entire quote."
