(Headline USA) When longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon surrendered last month at a federal prison in Connecticut, he asked an unconventional U.S. Senate candidate from Minnesota to stand at his side.
Royce White, seeking the Republican nomination in next week’s primary to challenge incumbent U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., put his arm around Bannon and praised him as “an American hero.”
The former NBA power forward also counts among his right-wing Alex Jones who, like Bannon, has been targeted by the leftist establishment for lawfare persecution due to his controversial views.
A POLITICAL UNICORN
White sent a shockwave through Minnesota’s political ecosystem in May when, with Bannon’s backing, he captured the state Republican Party’s endorsement to take on Klobuchar.
In a crowded primary field with seven other competitors, however, he still needs a win on Tuesday to advance to the Nov. 5 general election.
Moreover, he faces steep odds against Klobuchar in a battleground state where the socialist governor, Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, is likely to boost turnout among radical left-wingers.
Klobuchar, with more than $6 million available in campaign cash, will have an enormous financial advantage.
Nonetheless, White’s success in Minnesota—which has prided itself on a quirky and unpredictable political history dating back to at least the early 20th century—has made the race anything but the sleepy affair it was expected to be.
His celebrity status is likely to help in a state that previously elected wrestler and Predator star Jesse Ventura as a governor from the Reform Party and Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken as a Democrat senator.
Even a past history of promoting controversial conspiracy theories might help him shore up the support of Minneapolis’s large community of Somalian Muslims, whom Democrats have been desperate to court in the presidential race.
White argues that, as a black man, he can help broaden the party’s base by appealing to voters of color in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area and others who are disillusioned with establishment politics.
FROM CRAZY TO CONSERVATIVE
As a basketball player, White led Hopkins High School to the 2009 state championship. A shoplifting arrest precipitated his exit from the University of Minnesota, but he starred at Iowa State and was picked by Houston in the first round of the 2012 NBA draft.
Unfortunately, White’s NBA career was cut short by a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder that was exacerbated by pteromerhanophobia—a fear of flying.
Although the Rockets initially agreed to accommodate him with bus transportation to away games, it resulted in friction that got the first-round pick traded after one season to the Sacramento Kings, where he played in three games.
His only NBA playing time was three minutes across three games with Sacramento in 2014. He now says he flies when he has to and that it won’t be a problem if he’s elected.
He got back into the game in the Big3, the 3-on-3 league co-founded by Ice Cube. It was Big3 co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz who introduced White to Bannon.
As a frequent guest on Bannon’s “War Room,” White’s pivot to politics is a sign of the growing power of the populist wing of the GOP that the ex-Breitbart editor helped build.
White also became friends with Jones, the Infowars host who owes millions of dollars over a defamation lawsuit that sought to bankrupt him with extrarordinary punitive damages.
“He has a lot of courage to say things that many people won’t say,” White said of Jones.
He now hosts his own podcast, “Please Call Me Crazy,” and is a prolific poster on social media, where he recently called himself “the new gold standard of American badass, smash-mouth, nationalist populism.”
His targets include the Federal Reserve, which he says is run by “Jewish elites,” as well as the national debt, the Biden administration’s open border, LGBT activists, the mainstream media and his critics.
A LIGHTNING ROD FOR LEFTISTS
White drew little attention when he finished second in a GOP primary in 2022 for the nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. Thus, he was as shocked as anyone, he acknowledged in an interview, when he won a first-ballot endorsement at the state party’s convention in May.
He beat a more traditional Republican, U.S. Navy veteran Joe Fraser, who’s also running in the primary.
Fraser is highlighting his 26 years in the Navy, where he was an intelligence officer. His service included a combat tour in Iraq. He and his wife, who’s also a Navy veteran, settled in Minnesota because of her family.
In an interview with the AP, he said their frustrations with the Biden administration “and its abysmal foreign policy and its ineffective national policy” drove him into politics.
Fraser also said that he was troubled by White’s confrontational style and high-profile political alliances.
“Bannon is Bannon, but what I really think is an affront to decency is his support for Alex Jones,” Fraser claimed.
White credits Bannon’s endorsement—and his own speech—for persuading delegates that he’d be the strongest advocate for the pro-Trump “America First MAGA” movement.
However, the GOP endorsement quickly foisted him into the spotlight, where White became a lightning rod for leftist attacks, as has often been the case with outspoken black conservatives and other minorities seen as traitors to the leftist cause.
“Royce is clearly unprepared to be a U.S. senator and a candidate,” claimed University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs. “His record in the past is shameful and will be easy pickings for Amy Klobuchar.”
Former Minnesota GOP deputy chair Michael Brodkorb said White’s endorsement shows that the process is broken, and part of the problem is Republicans like himself who no longer attend conventions.
“You will see an active coalition of Republicans for Amy Klobuchar who will be proudly and loudly supporting Amy Klobuchar if Royce White wins the primary,” Brodkorb predicted.
The Campaign Legal Center—an nonprofit advocacy group led by former Federal Reserve chair Trevor Potter that keeps its donors’ names anonymous—filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in June alleging that White had used congressional campaign funds to illegally pay over $157,000 in personal expenses, saying he “appears to have misappropriated donors’ money to benefit himself.”
White denies any improper spending. In a filing last month, he reported he had reimbursed his campaign for “non-authorized expenses,” including a strip club visit. He argued that he liked the food there.
GOP senate candidate Royce White just amended a slew of campaign filings to clarify “non-authorized” expenses he now says he has personally reimbursed, including the $1200 Miami strip club payment he previously told me was legit, adding, “I like the food there” pic.twitter.com/JuLTLFJUo2
— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) July 15, 2024
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
