Don King's use of racial slur sparks war of words with old rival over politics

Boxing promoter Don King’s voice on the telephone was booming, full of excitement. It was as if he had a major fight to announce, but this time, he was talking politics.

King said he was aboard Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s airplane, talking to Yahoo Sports about why, at 85 years old, he’s getting himself mixed up in one of the most rough-and-tumble campaigns in years.

“We’re going to fly this thing all the way to the White House,” King said, guffawing. “I’m supporting the will of the people and the rejection of a corrupt and racist system. You go back and you’ll see, the founding fathers and the original 13 colonies, they rejected that system by going against King George. We will create a whole new system and tear this broken system we have apart so we can make America great again.

“No one has attacked the system the right way. We deal with the effects the system creates, but not the cause.”

He began to go on, but he was momentarily distracted. A familiar face apparently approached him on the plane as he was talking to a reporter on the phone.

“Hey, Bobby Knight!” King shrieked. “You are the best, man. The absolute best. What a great coach. What a great guy!”

He turned his attention back to the telephone.

“Man, the great Bobby Knight is here,” King said. “He’s out there for Donald Trump, too. We’re going to go everywhere we have to go and do what we need to do to help Donald Trump make America great again.”

It was as if it were 1986 and King was in his prime promoting boxing. He and UFC president Dana White, who spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, are supporting Trump.

King’s long-time and often bitter rival, promoter Bob Arum, is supporting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

King and Arum have battled viciously, often ruthlessly, for years, but they’ve mellowed and in 2010, promoted a show together in which they swapped stories and attaboys.

King turned 85 on Aug. 20, while Arum’s 85^th birthday is Dec. 8. Both are still trying to make a go of it in boxing, though they’re working in what has become one of the toughest eras for boxing in many years.

Both have always, however, dabbled in politics to one degree or another. A Harvard Law School graduate, Arum worked in the Kennedy Administration as a tax attorney and developed what he said was a good relationship with the late Sens. Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is Arum’s pal and often shows up at fights he promotes. But Arum, who said he voted for President Obama in 2008, is not a full-time Democrat. He considers himself a non-partisan who leans Democratic, but conceded he voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

“I think Romney would have been a great president,” Arum said.

King’s political affiliations are all over the map. He was an ardent supporter of President George W. Bush and bragged Wednesday that he delivered Ohio and Florida to Bush in 2004 by getting out the black vote.

King was stumping for Trump in Ohio on Wednesday when, in a slip of the tongue, he used the “N-word.” King chuckled as he explained his mistake to Yahoo Sports from his seat on Trump’s plane.

“I slipped and used the ‘N-word,’ as if I were talking directly to Michael Jackson,” King told Yahoo Sports. “I was speaking to Michael Jackson, but I was speaking in the vernacular we’d use on the street and I slipped.”

Trump, who was seated behind King as he said it, smiled at King’s mistake as others in the background laughed hard. But it was no laughing matter to Arum, who has tweeted often during the campaign about his support for Clinton.

After King’s appearance with Trump on Wednesday, Arum tweeted, “Once again ‪@realDonaldTrump shows that he lacks any good judgement (sic) to be president. Campaigning with Don King?! ‪#OnlyInClevelandHeights”

Arum railed against both Trump and King when contacted by Yahoo Sports.

He said King’s appearance with Trump was a desperate attempt to court black voters, who by the polls are supporting Clinton by an overwhelming margin. Arum said King is seeking attention and that he sidles up to Republicans because Democrats have no use for him.

“The Republicans try to say to black people, ‘The Democratic party is using you,’ ” Arum said. “But look at the Democratic convention. Black delegates were a large part of it and you realize that black people are instrumental in the party to a large extent and that black leaders in this country by and large are part and parcel of Democratic politics.

“These people have no use for King. They know what a scoundrel he is, what a cheat he is and how embarrassing he is to black people, and they won’t give him the time of day. He craves attention and so he panders to the Republicans who are happy to have a black face talking for them.”

King laughed off Arum’s words, mocking him as “Lonesome Bob,” a dig he first came up with in 1999 when the duo promoted the welterweight title fight between then-undefeated champions Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad.

King had Trinidad and Arum promoted De La Hoya, and King jabbed at Arum incessantly during that promotion, including coming up with the nickname, “Lonesome Bob.”

But he was hardly burned by Arum’s words Wednesday.

“My reaction is that you can say hello to ‘Lonesome Bob’ for me and tell him I love him, and tell him that he can look at the record and see that my record in this field speaks for itself,” King said. “I was with President Jimmy Carter not long after the Camp David Accord gave us the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. I had dinner with [Carter] and the Shah of Iran in 1979. After that, Jimmy Carter wrote me a letter that he addressed, ‘My good friend Don King.’

“I’m had a relationship with every president since then. Ronald Reagan and I were friends. Shimon Peres [former prime minister and president of Israel] called me an ambassador for peace.

“Nelson Mandela, one of the greatest men who ever lived, said to me, ‘You’ve done a lot for boxing but even more for world peace.’ George Walker Bush hand wrote me a letter about what I’ve done. It wasn’t that kind of typed thing that they do and stamp his signature to. This was a hand-written thing, in the president’s handwriting, to me.”

Arum counts a long list of famous politicians, past and present, as friends. He doesn’t have a lengthy relationship with Clinton, but got to know her as a result of his friendship with Las Vegas Sun newspaper publisher Brian Greenspun.

Brian Greenspun went to college with President Clinton and has been long-time friends with both of them. At a dinner at UNLV, Arum was seated next to Hillary Clinton and said he had a long talk with her. He said he believes many of the attacks on her are because she’s a woman.

He believes she’ll make a good president, but said he’s supporting her so ardently and so publicly because of his relationship with Trump. He claims Trump has “swindled” him out of money and has little good to say about the Republican nominee.

“The truth is, if Hillary were running against a normal Republican politician, I would tell people in social settings that I supported her, if I did, but it wouldn’t engage me the way that it has,” Arum said. “I know Donald Trump and I know what an absolute disaster he’d be for this country and the world. What I am saying has nothing to do with partisan politics. If the Republican nominee were Marco Rubio or [Jeb] Bush, I might support her, but I’d be nowhere near as vocal.

“This country has been unbelievably great for me and my family and I will do anything possible to keep it from getting destroyed. You have to understand: This is not a normal situation. We’re dealing with a man, Donald Trump, who is a complete and total con man. He’s an absolute cheat and if he’s elected, he can do tremendous, tremendous damage to the country and to the world.”

King’s appearance with Trump might do damage to Trump’s campaign, judging by the media reaction to it. Not only was King’s use of the “N-word” all over television, but headlines note that he was convicted of manslaughter.

Those aren’t the type of headlines most presidential campaigns relish, and King was eager to explain both away.

Two people have died at King’s hands. The first came in 1954 when he shot a man, Hillary Brown, whom he said had entered his home and was trying to rob him.

“That guy was trying to rob me, or knock me off,” said King, who was shot in the head twice by a Cleveland mobster and had his home blown up, so he might not have been out of line thinking Brown was trying to kill him. “The guy came at me in my house with a gun. That one was ruled a justifiable homicide.”

The second person to die at King’s hands was Sam Garrett, whom King claimed stole from him in 1966. He explained Garrett’s death as “the frustrations of the ghetto.” They were fighting on the street and Garrett’s head slammed on the ground.

King wound up being convicted of manslaughter, not murder, and served four years in Marion Correctional Institution. Former Ohio Gov. James Rhodes pardoned King of the Garrett killing in 1984.

“The judge said, ‘This was self-defense’ and ‘This ain’t right,’ ” King recalled on Wednesday. “I was supposed to get 60 or 90 days, I forget, but that was around the ‘Scared Straight’ time and they got me longer.

“People have used those against me, but my heart is right with God.”

The two old rivals have cranked it up again one last time, this time with the stakes as high as they’ve ever been. Both have done business with Trump and have developed vastly different impressions of him.

King is going to attend Monday’s presidential debate and said he’ll work vigorously for Trump’s election, even as he plans a heavyweight championship bout between Bermane Stiverne, whom he promotes, and WBC champion Alexander Povetkin.

King told Yahoo Sports that he received an inquiry from a representative of Chinese President Xi Jinping about staging the fight in China.

But his goal is to put it on in December at a venue where both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin can attend.

“The masses are with me and Arum wishes he could have the strength I have with these people [world leaders],” King said. “I can help make a better world through boxing. Let’s put this fight on between Bermane and Povetkin and I’ll have President Putin on one side and President Trump on the other side. That’s the kind of thing only I am able to do, because I am a promoter of the people, for the people and by the people and my magic lies in my people ties.

“When this thing started, people wanted to call Donald Trump a buffoon, a clown and [just] a reality-TV show star. But 14 million votes later, he beat out 17 other opponents – not one or two, like Hillary, 17! – and he became the nominee. And now we’re out there and we’re going to take the story to the people so the people know the truth and know that Donald Trump is going to make America great again.”

Arum said only Clinton can do that and said she isn’t the divisive figure that Trump is. Arum said he put together what he dubbed the “No Trump Undercard,” for a Manny Pacquiao fight in April as a way to make a statement against Trump’s stance on immigration.

“One thing that gets me riled up is when a particular demographic is picked on and incendiary language is used,” Arum said. “Trump started that in this campaign with his words about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. What he’s saying goes so against the principals of this country.

“About a month ago at a meeting at the temple I attend, someone asked me why I was so vociferous and jumped to the defense of Mexicans and the undocumented immigrants. And I said, ‘Well, it may be Mexicans today and it might be Muslims tomorrow, but that conduct will down the line end with the Jews.’

“If you let demagogues and authoritarians take over, that’s what will happen,” he said. “I’m not saying Trump is anti-Semite, because he’s not. Let’s be fair. But the kind of conduct that stifles all minority groups, in eight years, 16 years, the Jews will be targeted. Not by him, but that kind of conduct leads to that. And so no matter what King might say, I have to take a stand against that kind of thing.”