Former RNC Chair Blasts Byron Donalds' Jim Crow Remarks: 'Stop This Crap'

Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), blasted Representative Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican, on MSNBC's The Weekend on Sunday for his previous Jim Crow remarks, telling him to "stop this crap."

Donalds spoke about the Jim Crow-era, a period of racial segregation following the Civil War that continued until the late 1960s, while at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump in Philadelphia on Tuesday, which was aimed at engaging Black people to vote for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

"You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative—Black people have always been conservative-minded—but more Black people voted conservatively," the congressman said.

Donalds, who has been floated as Trump's potential running mate, received backlash for his remarks, which included a stern talking to from Reverend Al Sharpton on his MSNBC show Politics Nation on Saturday night.

"How can you even live with yourself acting like Jim Crow was a good era or a better era for Blacks?" Sharpton asked Donalds.

Donalds said that Sharpton was "lying about what I said," adding, "I did say Jim Crow...that's not to say that it was better. I never said that. Those words never came out of my mouth."

After showing a clip of this fiery exchange on The Weekend on Sunday morning, Steele, who is a co-host on the program, said, "You don't double down on Jim Crow, bro. You just don't. You can't convince Black people or anybody else that we were better off in a segregated society where your behind wouldn't have even been allowed in Congress and certainly would have had questions about who you socialize with."

Steele went into an anecdote from when he was growing up in Washington, D.C., while it was still segregated: "My mama couldn't take me to certain parks in D.C. because of Jim Crow. And yet, I sit where I sit now despite that."

He continued: "I'm not going to forget that though and I'm not going to try to romanticize it and pretend that somehow my mama and I were better off when she couldn't take me to that park. So just stop it. And especially Black Republicans, stop this crap, let's be honest about it."

Newsweek has reached out to MSNBC via email for comment from Steele as well as Donalds' office via email for comment.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's reelection campaign said in response to Donalds' Jim Crow remarks in a statement that Trump "spent his adult life, and then his presidency undermining the progress Black communities fought so hard for—so it actually tracks that his campaign's 'Black outreach' is going to a white neighborhood and promising to take America back to Jim Crow."

Newsweek also reached out to Trump's spokesperson Steven Cheung via email for comment.