You can add J.C. Watts to a list of Republicans who have doubts about Donald Trump.
The former OU football star and former GOP Congressman told the Oklahoman that Trump uses too broad a brush when talking about groups, whether it be blacks, Hispanics, women, or Muslims.
Watts says he doesn’t feel like Trump is speaking to him as an African-American, as a conservative, or as a believer.
And Watts says he understands people’s anger, but he doesn’t like how Trump is exercising it, offering to pay people’s legal bills if they punch opponents.
A reminder, the KRMG Morning News will be at the GOP convention in Cleveland in July.
Julius Caesar “J. C.” Watts, Jr. was born on November 18, 1957 and is an American politician from Oklahoma who was a college football quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners and later played professionally in the Canadian Football League. Watts served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 as a Republican, representing Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District.
Watts was born and raised in Eufaula, Oklahoma, in a rural impoverished neighborhood. After being one of the first children to attend an integrated elementary school, he became a high school quarterback and gained a football scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. He graduated from college in 1981 with a degree in journalism and became a football player in the Canadian Football League until his retirement in 1986.
Watts became a Baptist minister and was elected in 1990 to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission as the first African-American in Oklahoma to win statewide office. He successfully ran for Congress in 1994 and was re-elected to three additional terms with increasing vote margins. Watts delivered the Republican response to Bill Clinton’s 1997 State of the Union address and was elected Chair of the House Republican Conference in 1998. He retired in 2003 and turned to lobbying and business work, also occasionally serving as a political commentator.
While in high school, Watts fathered a daughter with a white female, causing a scandal. Their families decided against an interracial marriage because of contemporary racial attitudes and Watts’ family provided for the child until she could be adopted by Watts’ uncle, Wade Watts, a Baptist minister, civil rights leader and head of the Oklahoma division of the NAACP.