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A Black and gay Republican influencer said he was encircled by a group of "white supremacists" who yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him at a MAGA event, per Newsweek.
Army veteran Rob Smith shared a video of the incident on social media, saying he was "confronted and surrounded by some White Supremacists that don't like gays or blacks in the Republican Party" at an event hosted by Republicans for National Renewal in Phoenix, Arizona.
Smith said the group heckled him with racial and homophobic slurs. Video shows the group yelling a homophobic slur, but it's unclear when the racial slur was said.
In a CNN interview on Tuesday (December 19), Smith called the incident a "hate crime" and alleged that the group "did say the N-word, absolutely."
Smith said he felt he could've been killed by the MAGA hecklers.
"I'm looking at soulless dead-eyed white supremacists that, by the way, I felt that these people could have bashed my brains in had they gotten the chance," he said. "I deal with these people in real life. And I know for a fact where they're coming from. I know that a lot of these people have infiltrated these conservative organizations from top to bottom."
However, Smith doesn't believe that bigotry is widespread among the Republican Party or Trump supporters.
"Do I think that this stuff is coming from the millions of people that voted for Trump? I do not, I do not," he said. "Do I think that it's something that the Trump campaign endorses or the Republican Party endorses? I do not, because I know these people and I have been around these people."
Republicans for National Renewal said the people who heckled Smith "were members of the public without any association with us and we were actively involved in defusing the situation and ensuring attendee safety. These sorts of actions are not welcome at our events and the individuals involved will be excluded from future events."
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