WASHINGTON _ A consultant to Virginia Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart repeatedly made racist social media posts, according to a report.
Among Rick Shaftan's most racist posts included comparing NFL players who do not stand for the national anthem to monkeys.
"If black 'leaders' want better race relations, which of course they don't, they could start by telling football players to stand for the National Anthem, instead of sitting on the bench eating a banana," he said.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch found that Stewart paid Shaftan's Atlantic Media & Research more than $113,000 for consulting and advertising.
Stewart also paid Shaftan during Stewart's failed run for governor last year.
Shaftan did not respond to questions from the Times-Dispatch whether he stood by his posts, but said the banana comment was based off a Washington Post story about the Oakland Raiders' Marshawn Lynch sitting and eating a banana during the national anthem.
Stewart has defended keeping up monuments to the Confederacy despite being from Minnesota. Shaftan also said black people were tricked into caring about the Confederate flag.
"Black people didn't have a problem with the #RebelXFlag or Confederate Statues until wealthy white people told them they did. #SlipperySlope," Shaftan tweeted in 2017.
He also said after riots in Ferguson, Mo., after the police shooting of Michael Brown, "Only a fool would start, finance or insure a business in a black neighborhood."
The remarks were unearthed after the Daily Beast reported that he called New Orleans, Memphis and Baltimore "s---holes."
The same report found that he called the NAACP "the Black KKK, only more violent and dangerous."
John Whitbeck, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, said the posts were bad for the GOP as a whole.
"Republicans are facing the most important election in a long time. The Democrats' only message against us right now is we're racists," he said. "If you make despicable tweets like that, all you're doing is feeding the narrative that the Democrats are trying to use against us."
Incumbent Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine's spokesman Ian Sams called the remarks "disgusting."
