Former basketball star Charles Barkley said in a new interview that he thinks the Democratic Party should be held accountable for “taking black people’s votes” for decades and giving little in return.

Speaking on Michael Smerconish’s SiriusXM radio show on Wednesday, Mr. Barkley recalled a conversation he had with Democratic Sen. Doug Jones during his 2017 special election victory against Roy Moore in Alabama.

“I said ‘Doug, I’m going to support you. I’m going to try to get every black person in Alabama to vote for you.’ And it worked out. We won for the first time in 40 years,” Mr. Barkley recalled, Mediaite reported. “But I said, ‘We need to start holding you Democrats accountable,’ because they’ve been taking black people’s votes and they only talk to black people every four years.

“All of these politicians only talk to black people every four years because they want their vote,” he said.

He added that he didn’t think Republicans bothered to reach out to black voters at all.

It’s not the first time the NBA legend has criticized the Democratic Party. In July, he said “every black person” he knows has always voted Democrat, and “all those people are still poor.” He has also been critical of the Republican Party and President Trump.

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