MSNBC host Joy Reid and political analyst Juanita Tolliver claimed during Wednesday’s edition of “The Reid Out” that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent comments about basketball players had racist undertones.
Reid played a clip of DeSantis’ June 16 interview with CBN News, in which he reflected on his time as a baseball player in college and compared the experience to basketball. DeSantis said that anyone could participate on a baseball team as long as they were willing to practice and work hard. He subsequently called basketball players “freaks of nature.” (RELATED: ‘An Awful Lot Of Trouble’: Fox News Hosts Compare DeSantis Campaign To Jeb Bush’s Failed 2016 Run)
Tolliver immediately groaned in disgust at DeSantis’ comments.
“Ugh!” she said.
“It’s no wonder that he makes stupid statements around slavery being beneficial for enslaved people when that’s what he thinks about basketball players, which we know is code for black people,” Tolliver said.
“Right, like, it just oozes through his pores, the racism and the white supremacy,” Tolliver said.
Tolliver pondered how DeSantis has been able to “get so far” in his political career, but expressed gratitude that he seems to be struggling in the GOP primary thus far.
Reid mentioned the purported anti-LGBT video that allegedly came from a staffer within the DeSantis campaign. She also pointed out that many conventions, such as the Game of Thrones convention, National Society of Black Engineers, and the historically black Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity have decided to remove their events from Florida over DeSantis’ politics.
“How does he run for president when he’s running conventions out of his state?” Reid asked.
“I mean, it also tracks with the NAACP releasing a full travel warning for black and brown people because the state is so harmful,” Tolliver added.