On Wednesday night the Daily Show introduced the world to Don Yelton, a Republican party official who, by his telling, has “been called a bigot before.” Yelton went on record to detail how the wave of “anti-voter fraud” legislation being passed by states in recent months is less about voter fraud and more about suppressing the votes of voters likely to vote for Democrats. He also said some overtly racist things, so racist that at one point Aasif Mandvi warned, “You know that we can hear you, right?”
Well, yesterday afternoon the North Carolina GOP forced Yelton to resign from his post on the party’s executive committee. The Buncombe County GOP released a statement saying, “Mr. Yelton’s comments are offensive, uniformed, and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party…In no way are his comments representative of the local or state Republican Party.”
Yelton, meanwhile, feels no remorse, naturally, and claims that the comments of his that aired were actually tame compared to some of the others he made during the sitdown that were edited out.
Reports the Mountain Xpress:
Despite the controversy, Yelton tells Xpress: “The comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them.”
The short interview clips were edited together from a much longer two-hour sit-down, says Yelton. But he says he was pleased overall with the parts that were included. In fact, he notes that some of the comments he made that weren’t included might’ve even been more controversial. “To tell you the truth, there were a lot of things I said that they could’ve made sound worse than what they put up.”
Well there you go!
