Charles Barkley on CNN.

Ahead of Tuesday’s special U.S. Senate election in Alabama, former Auburn and NBA star and current NBA on TNT analyst Charles Barkley showed up in the state to campaign for Democratic candidate Doug Jones and against Republican Roy Moore. In the wake of Jones’ victory Tuesday night (which also seems to have involved lots of write-in votes for Nick Saban), Barkley appeared on CNN to talk about the results, and he had a lot to say. First, he talked about what this meant for the state:

“This is a great night for Alabama. You know, we’ve been stuck in a time warp for a long time. This is just a great night for Alabama, and for Doug Jones. I just want to thank everybody who worked on Doug’s campaign, everybody who came out to vote today, but this is really just a referendum on Alabama. We really needed this.”

Barkley went on to bash Moore:

“First of all, Roy Moore was an embarrassment. Hey, listen; if any other man had eight women accusing him of sexual harassment, talking about how he really enjoyed slavery, how he thinks people are homosexuals should go to jail, they wouldn’t have even been in this election. This was more of a referendum on the state of Alabama, and I’m just so proud, I’m just so proud of my state.”

After that, Barkley talked about the people of Alabama:

“I love my state. We’ve got a bunch of amazing people here. Yeah, we’ve got a bunch of rednecks and a bunch of ignorant people here, but we’ve got some amazing people here, and they rose up today.”

Barkley went on to say that Democrats need to do more for black voters and for poor voters:

“They’ve taken the black vote and the poor vote for granted for a lot time. It’s time for them to get off their ass and start making things better for black folks and for people who are poor. …This is a wake-up call for Democrats to do better for black people and for poor white people.”

Well, no one can accuse Barkley of being afraid to say what he thinks. He certainly made that very clear with his comments Tuesday, and did not stick to sports.

[Clippit]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.