Shaun King, a Morehouse College graduate and activist, became almost as talked about as the top contenders vying for the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday after he made misleading claims about MSNBC’s Super Tuesday reporting.
King, who has faced controversy about his racial identity and advocacy fundraising, posted a "breaking" news post on Twitter Tuesday night. In it, he claims that MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow reported that "multiple 'senior officials'" within the Democratic Party are interfering with the primaries to stop @BernieSanders."
Maddow tweeted King back directly late Tuesday, stating she “didn’t report any such thing.” King had not responded as of Wednesday evening. The writer and social activist has been using his Twitter platform, which includes more than 1 million followers, to share his support for Sanders, who won the California primary Tuesday night, and criticize former Vice President Joe Biden, who won 10 states in the Super Tuesday races.
In a tweet Sunday night, King made claims that staffers for former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke were hurt by O’Rourke’s endorsement of Biden.
The 40-year-old Kentucky native’s latest claims on Super Tuesday attracted much ire from Twitter users, who said his “false” claims were in line with previous misleading statements.
After Shaun King lied about what Maddow said last night & she rightfully called him out about it, a whole new swath of folks are having their eyes opened about who he is. @deray wrote this to lay out in detail what is known about Talcum X. https://t.co/UZD0UxswrY
— April (@ReignOfApril) March 4, 2020
BREAKING: Shaun King is now reduced to just making crap up, and pretending somebody else is responsible.
— Monty 🇺🇸Hamilton's Battery🇺🇸 Boa (@MontyBoa99) March 4, 2020
Very Kremlin 2016.https://t.co/LG07vdhe6g
Shaun King is a lying fraud. https://t.co/tVSuxoyWon
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) March 4, 2020
Shaun King jumped on twitter Mon & lied on Beto staff to which they corrected him & he turned right back around last night to lie on Rachel Maddow
— BlackWomenAreKryptoniteToGOP (@battletested5) March 4, 2020
Please report his tweets..he is spreading 2020 election disinformation because Bernie is losing
FYI. Rihanna, we tried to tell you
The references to Rihanna in several tweets were in response to the pop singer honoring King at her Diamond Ball for his philanthropic work last year. In recent years, several fellow activists have disputed whether King’s efforts to raise funds for social justice are legitimate.
People on the left (even including prominent BLM activists) and right have been regularly calling out Shaun King for being a con artist and bigot for years. That’s why it’s so revealing that Bernie Sanders still chose him to be one of his biggest surrogates. https://t.co/HfasAiJODu
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) March 4, 2020
King, who has relaunched the Frederick Douglass publication The North Star and co-founded social justice lobbyist organization Real Justice PAC, has denied these claims.
The former pastor has also received backlash for identifying as black, which some do not believe. He addressed the racial identity issue in 2015.
"The reports about my race, about my past, and about the pain I've endured are all lies," King wrote on the website DailyKos.com, where he was once a staff writer. "I have been told for most of my life that the white man on my birth certificate is not my biological father and that my actual biological father is a light-skinned black man. My mother and I have discussed her affair. She was a young woman in a bad relationship and I have no judgment."
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