In a bizarre rant about the Democratic primary, conservative gadfly Candace Owens labeled current front-runner Bernie Sanders “the best racist on the left” and warned African-American voters that the self-described democratic socialist would turn out to be “LBJ 2.0,” alluding to the president who passed the landmark Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the 1960s.

In a debate with civil rights attorney Leo Terrell on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Owens began by slamming former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and predicted his campaign was doomed because of his past racist comments and NYPD’s unconstitutional stop-and-frisk policing policy, which President Donald Trump has also strongly endorsed. But she then turned her sights on Sanders.

“The good racist, the best racist on the left, by the way, is Bernie Sanders because he pretends to be their friend, he lies to black America’s face,” Owens then claimed of someone who was frequently arrested during the 1960s at civil rights protests and attended the 1963 March on Washington. “He knows he is going to be the one like Lyndon Baines Johnson, he’s Lyndon Baines Johnson 2.0, who is going to enact policies that are going to harm black America for the next 100 years when he smiles in their faces and he takes the bait.”

At this outlandish claim, backed up by no evidence from Owens, Terrell threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Laura, Laura, did she talk about Lyndon Baines Johnson…and the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act?!” Terrell sputtered in disbelief. “OK, she lost me.”

To justify her incendiary, ahistorical argument, Owens later posted a legislative criticism of LBJ as well as allegedly racist quote of his on Twitter. But her first claim, which is true, was quickly called out as highly misleading, since it notably leaves out the period where Johnson, as Senate Majority Leader, spearheaded the passage of two early civil rights bills (1957 and 1960), disproving her argument. Johnson is also credited with helping to save the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act when its fate looked in doubt. And the quote she cites of LBJ using the n-word to insult black voters as being naive is a years-old apocryphal claim that has little to no evidence to back it up.

Lyndon B. Johnson, while in Congress for 20 years, voted against EVERY SINGLE civil rights bill put before him. He only signed the Civil Rights Act because he was forced to, as President.

He was a racist, hence “I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years”. https://t.co/JaajEBPdie — Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) February 18, 2020

LBJ not only voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960; he helped ensure their passage as Senate Majority Leader. As president he took JFK’s bill, stalled in Congress, made it *much* stronger and pushed it to passage. Also, your LBJ quote is fake.https://t.co/CrbOdmuhOA — Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) February 18, 2020

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

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