Clay Aiken, the American Idol alum who turned his back on a pop career for a run at politics, has had a change of heart on President Trump.
In light of Trump’s contested claim that “both sides” were at fault for the violence during a recent protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aiken fired off a tweet Tuesday night in which he unequivocally pulled any shred of support for Trump, who he inferred to as “actually racist.”
Remember all those times I defended @realDonaldTrump and believed he was not actually racist? Well… I am a f*****g dumbass. #imsorry
— Clay Aiken (@clayaiken) August 15, 2017
It’s something of a U-turn for Aiken, a North Carolina Democrat who kept a close eye on Trump through his controversial election campaign and correctly (and reluctantly) predicted he’d win. Many casual observers figured Aiken was a fan, which he denies.
As a contestant on NBC’s The Apprentice, Aiken had a ringside seat observing then-host Trump calling the shots. Reality TV and the real thing aren’t the same thing. In his latest tweet, Aiken called himself a “f*****g dumbass” for good measure, and made sure to copy Trump’s Twitter handle.
Aiken’s Twitter thumbs were smoking overnight as he blasted the pres with a string of messages. “TBC… I’ve always thought he would be a dumpster fire as a president, and I was right about that. I just didn’t think he was racist. #wrong,” he wrote.
And in a response to a comment from another Twitter user, he wrote, “My party is the Democrats. I didn’t vote for the idiot. Never ever implied that I did or would. Was VERY vocal about not voting for him.” In others, he set the record straight for those who assumed he was a “Trump supporter.”
Considering I spoke out against him throughout general election and urged people to vote for Hillary, you may not be much brighter yourself https://t.co/hwKODq7ocp
— Clay Aiken (@clayaiken) August 16, 2017
Bitch, please! If you think I have EVER been a “Trump supporter” you’re as crazy as he is. #payattention https://t.co/uT7mEWdoSH
— Clay Aiken (@clayaiken) August 16, 2017
— My party is the Democrats. I didn’t vote for the idiot. Never ever implied that I did or would. Was VERY vocal about not voting for him. https://t.co/JjRg1e4weX
— Clay Aiken (@clayaiken) August 16, 2017
In 2014, Aiken tried his hand in the game of politics, running for a Congressional seat in North Carolina — a run covered in his own docu-series, The Runner Up.
With his insider’s perspective on the 2016 election, Aiken correctly predicted Trump would defy the polls. “We say Hillary has no chance of losing, Trump’s never going to be President and people continue to say that and they will stay home and it’ll end up being like Brexit in England where we end up having a clown President for four years,” he said during a July 2016 episode of Chelsea.