'Your analogy is ridiculous': Republican gets brutal fact check on Trump persecution claim

A far-right North Carolina congressman drew sharp criticism Tuesday following his comparison of former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case in New York to what Black people experienced in 1950s Alabama.

Republican Rep. Dan Bishop, who represents the state's 9th congressional district near Charlotte, told The Pete Kaliner Show in Charlotte that Trump's criminal case "fundamentally rigged" because the case was brought in the Democratic leaning state.

"I do believe that the people who are engaging in selective prosecution, vindictive prosecution, using it, doing it, and when I say it's rigged, it's not just they don't go into a fair fight," he said. "They go into a place where they know the fight is unfair."

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Bishop then compared the former president's case to those experienced by Black Americans in the 1950s in the South, where people of color routinely faced discrimination, harassment, arbitrary arrests and brutality at the hands of law enforcement.

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"It's as bad as it was in Alabama in 1950 if a person happened to be Black in order to get justice," Bishop said. "And that's what they did in New York. So it was fundamentally rigged."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, reaction to Bishop’s comments were swift — and pointed.

Washington Post national columnist Philip Bump called the analogy “very, very fraught,” in a piece published Tuesday afternoon, and noted that the implication Trump’s case was brought in Manhattan to increase the odds of a conviction was patently false.

“The reality, of course, is that the crime occurred at the Trump Organization, which is located in Manhattan.”

Bump said Bishop ought to know better than to compare Trump’s trial to the systemic racism and abuse experienced by Blacks in Alabama in that period, many of whom were targeted by law enforcement.

“Even if Trump had not committed the crimes he was accused of — though a jury determined that he did — the targeting, in Bishop’s estimation, appears to have been because of Trump’s politics. It would not have been either racist or systemic. It would have been personal. In Jim Crow Alabama, by contrast, power was used against and to send a message to a broad population,” Bump said.

Social media users also skewered Bishop’s analogy.

“Your analogy is ridiculous (to say nothing of offensive). Go away,” one user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Only a white man could and would say that,” wrote another incredulous user.

“Oh yes please, let's have more southern pols chime in on the injustices towards black citizens in their states like it's ripe for comparison with a white billionaire who spent the last four days golfing at one of his own courses,” a third X user wrote.

And Charlotte public school advocate Justin Parmenter tweeted that it’s time Bishop “go sit in time out.”

A voicemail left Tuesday afternoon with Allie McCandless, a communications director for Bishop, wasn't immediately returned.

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