One of the country’s most prominent white nationalists on Wednesday put an end to a robocall campaign in Utah that promoted Donald Trump’s candidacy and labeled independent candidate Evan McMullin a “closet homosexual.”
“I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents,” William Johnson, chair of the white nationalist American Freedom Party and founder of the pro-Trump American National super PAC, said in an emailed statement.
“I sent the robocalls out because Utah is a strong family-values state and America and the West is gripped by an extreme and fatal malady: failure to marry and have children,” Johnson continued. “The white birth rate is so astonishingly low that Western Civilization will soon cease to exist. I felt that Evan McMullin typified that perfidious mentality.”
Johnson said the robocall effort, which launched Monday, was scheduled to end Wednesday anyway.
In the recording, Johnson mocked McMullin’s mother for her marriage to a woman and alleged that the independent presidential candidate was also gay because he was in his 40s and unmarried.
Trump’s campaign released a statement saying they “strongly condemn” Johnson’s rhetoric, while McMullin responded by saying “most bigots” support Trump.
Johnson’s PAC is not affiliated with the Trump campaign.
Johnson said in the statement that he felt compelled to issue a “heartfelt apology” after receiving backlash for the anti-McMullin spot.
Previous pro-Trump robocalls pushed by Johnson have called on voters to elect a candidate who can stop the “gradual genocide against the white race.”
Read his full statement below:
To: All concerned,
Please be informed that I have disabled the anti-Evan McMullin robocalls that went out Monday and Tuesday and is scheduled to finish today. I will not send the rest of the robocalls out to Utah or anywhere else. I have stopped the campaign immediately.
I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents. I sent the robocalls out because Utah is a strong family-values state and America and the West is gripped by an extreme and fatal malady: failure to marry and have children. The white birth rate is so astonishingly low that Western Civilization will soon cease to exist. I felt that Evan McMullin typified that perfidious mentality.
Donald Trump’s campaign has repudiated my robocall and many people from Utah and beyond have excoriated me for it as well. Just as Donald Trump has issued a heart-felt apology for his past locker room talk, I too issue a heartfelt apology for this robocall. I should not have sent out. I am truly sorry.
Sincerely,
William Johnson
Johnson & Associates
