GOP Official Quits After Daily Show Remarks

On Wednesday night's Daily Show, a North Carolina county GOP official discussed new voter ID laws in the state—and his racially-charged comments have prompted his resignation, Politico reports. If a new measure hurts college students, whites, or "a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it," Don Yelton, who was a Republican precinct chairman in Buncombe County, said. He noted: "I've been called a bigot before," but "one of my best friends is black," he told Daily Show correspondent Aasif Maandvi.

After a series of comments from Yelton along the same lines, Maandvi asked, "You know that we can hear you, right?" In a statement, state party chair Claude Pope called for Yelton's resignation, labeling the remarks "outrageous and intolerant." "Mr. Yelton does not speak for either the Buncombe County Republican Party or the North Carolina Republican Party," said the statement, posted on Facebook. But Yelton isn't repudiating his comments. "The comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them," he told local paper Mountain Xpress, per Politico. "To tell you the truth, there were a lot of things I said that they could've made sound worse than what they put up." (More Don Yelton stories.)