Gregory Cheadle, the black man singled out by President Trump Donald John TrumpFederal prosecutor speaks out, says Barr 'has brought shame' on Justice Dept. Former Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick MORE as "my African American" at a rally, is leaving the Republican Party and pursuing a congressional run as an independent, PBS News reported Thursday.

The 62-year-old real estate broker told the outlet that he sees the GOP as pursuing a “pro-white” agenda and using black people like him as “political pawns.”

The moment that convinced Cheadle to leave the party was when many Republicans did not condemn Trump's tweets telling four congresswomen of color to back to their countries and defended Trump's attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings Elijah Eugene CummingsBlack GOP candidate accuses Behar of wearing black face in heated interview Overnight Health Care: US won't join global coronavirus vaccine initiative | Federal panel lays out initial priorities for COVID-19 vaccine distribution | NIH panel: 'Insufficient data' to show treatment touted by Trump works House Oversight Democrats to subpoena AbbVie in drug pricing probe MORE (D-Md.) and Baltimore.

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“President Trump is a rich guy who is mired in white privilege to the extreme,” Cheadle, who switched from being an independent to a Republican in 2001, told PBS. “Republicans are too sheepish to call him out on anything and they are afraid of losing their positions and losing any power themselves.”

He said that after the two attacks from the president, many of his Republican friends defended Trump.

“They were sidestepping the people of color issue and saying that, ‘No, it’s not racist,’ ” he said. “They were saying these people were socialists and communists. That’s what they were saying. And I thought this is a classic case of whites not seeing racism because they want to put blinders on and make it about something else.”

Cheadle became known when Trump singled him out at a 2016 rally in Redding, Calif.

At the time, Cheadle laughed along with the president and the crowd and said he wasn't offended by the incident.

“I’m more critical of it today than I was back then because today I wonder to what extent he said that for political gain or for attention,” he told PBS.