Republican Accused of Paying Women to Have an Abortion

A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota faced resurfaced allegations on Monday of paying women to have an abortion.

The Minnesota GOP on Saturday announced its endorsement of Royce White, a former NBA player, to run against Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. White attended the GOP convention at Saint Paul RiverCentre and was introduced at the event with a video by former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, a supporter of White.

Danny Abbas—@dabbs346, a Senate research director at American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic PAC, according to his profile on X, formerly Twitter—brought up the accusation against White in a Monday post.

"Royce White is looney, but also terrible on policy," Abbas wrote. "He describes himself as an anti-abortion "absolutist" despite himself having paid tens of thousands of dollars pressuring a woman to get an abortion. A (somehow) worse version of Herschel Walker and Steve Garvey."

In a statement emailed to Newsweek on Monday afternoon, Royce denied the allegations, saying: "Not true whatsoever."

In 2013, one of the women White was previously linked to, Fatima Jaed, told Bossip, an African American popular culture and entertainment site, that he offered her $20,000 for an abortion, which she did not have done.

According to Bossip, Jaed said White was still offering her $20,000 for an abortion despite her seemingly being farther along her pregnancy.

"He offered me $20k to get rid of our baby a month ago," she said. "But here's how dumb he is. I'm about to have my baby and he's still offering me money to get rid of it. So, I told him to send it just to see if he was going to do it and his dumb*** did!"

Jaed continued by claiming several other women were asked by White to get an abortion.

"That's how out of touch with reality he is," she said. "He thinks you can just get rid of a baby like that. He doesn't care. I know he has asked almost every girl he has ever been with to get an abortion as soon as he knocks them up."

American Bridge 21st Century referred Newsweek to a Complex story that also noted the allegations Jaed made against White. There is no evidence to suggest White has offered any money to women to have an abortion.

Abortion remains one of the key issues amid the 2024 election. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, announced in April that he believes abortion limits should be left to the states, declining to endorse a national ban after months of speculation and warning that extreme stances on the issue could lead to Republican losses in November.

According to White's campaign website, some of his main issues are public safety, economy, education, immigration and citizenship.

However, in 2022 White made an appearance on Bannon's War Room podcast, as he took to X to celebrate the overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.

"Roe v. Wade overturned. Praise be to the most high!...You can't have human rights or civil rights without sanctity of life. Protect Black babies! Let's take America back," White said.

Years before his political career, White was a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. He has since expressed more conservative views and now endorses Trump.

White has also recently faced backlash after his past tweets and comments resurfaced.

Journalist Aaron Rupar took to X to share one of White's controversial posts.

"This is who the Minnesota Republican Party just nominated to run against Amy Klobuchar," Rupar wrote. "There are far worse tweets still live on his page that I'm not posting because I don't want to overly disturb people."

The post Rupar referred to is from August 2023 in which White took aim at Republicans Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis after a GOP presidential debate. The post said, in part, that Haley is "paid for" while also criticizing Christie's physical appearance, adding that Mike Pence is incompetent. "Ron DeSantis, did he really look down the row to see how everybody else was going to answer? It's horrifying! The GOP candidates are intentionally horrible."

X user Republicans Against Trump, shared a video of White criticizing Democrats as he said that despite what Trump does, he would "still would never vote for...Democrats again."