L-A Radio: Roger Stone Denies Slur During KFI Interview

Roger Stone and Mo'Kelly

President Trump’s reprieved adviser Roger Stone called a black radio host a “Negro” during a heated live interview Saturday — prompting the furious host to later tweet, “I’m nobody’s Negro.”

At the time, Stone was getting a grilling over the merits of his convictions for lying to Congress by Morris O’Kelly, known as Mo’Kelly, the host of a broadcast on Southern California’s KFI 640 AM.

The NY Post reports Mo’Kelly argued that Stone’s close friendship with Trump was the reason he was granted clemency, and not because he was treated unfairly by the justice system as Stone has insisted.

“There are thousands of people treated unfairly daily. Hell, your number just happened to come up in the lottery,” Mo’Kelly said. “I’m guessing it was more than just luck, Roger, right?

An exasperated Stone paused during the debate and appeared to vent to someone else in the room with him.

“I don’t really feel like arguing with this Negro,” Stone could be heard saying.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Mo’Kelly responds.

“Roger? I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Stone then went silent for more than 40 seconds before claiming the phone line was going in and out.

Mo’Kelly asked Stone to repeat what he said, the word “Negro,” but Stone denied ever saying the word — which was nonetheless clearly audible on a taped version, at around the 12-minute mark of the 30-minute interview.

Hey everyone. I heard what I heard. The audio is the audio. I will address in Hour 2. We're blowing out the second half of the show.#RogerStone

I am nobody's NEGRO.

— Mr. Mo'Kelly 🎙️ (@MrMokelly) July 19, 2020

Mo’Kelly later blogged about the interview, calling Stone out for using the “low-calorie version of the N-Word.”

“[Stone] didn’t see me as a journalist, not as a professional, not a radio host … but a “Negro” first and foremost,” he wrote.

“Thirty years as an entertainment professional, twenty of them in radio. ‘Negro’ was the first pejorative uttered.”


In a statement, Stone defended himself by saying that anyone familiar with him “knows I despise racism!”

“Mr. O’Kelly needs a good peroxide cleaning of the wax in his ears because at no time did I call him a negro,” Stone said, using lowercase for the word. “That said, Mr. O’Kelly needs to spend a little more time studying black history and institutions. The word negro is far from a slur.”

He cited the United Negro College Fund and the historical use of the word.

At one time, “Negro” was common in the American vernacular to describe African Americans. By the late 1960s, however, the word was scorned by activists in favor of such descriptors as “Black.” These days, some view the antiquated word as derogatory in most uses, The Associated Press reports.