Royce White, a George Floyd protest leader and former college basketball star turned right-wing Senate candidate in Minnesota, has been ordered arrested after he fell at least half behind on his court-ordered child support payments through 2020. 2023, court documents in two cases show.
White, a father of four, was twice found in contempt of court over the findings, one of which was held in “constructive contempt” in Minnesota, and still faces a possible 180-day jail sentence. continue payments. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for October 21, two weeks before the election.
White’s candidacy has received renewed attention after the Republican Party of Minnesota endorsed him with the support of two-thirds of voters at the state convention this month. He previously lost the 2022 GOP primary to unseat Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and raised a modest amount for his Senate campaign, according to campaign finance records. But he has come under fire from conservatives for giving inflammatory speeches and making inflammatory, vulgar comments against critics and opponents online.
White still has to survive a contested GOP primary, but the state party has elevated him former President Donald Trump and his campaign Making noise about turning Minnesota presidential red this fall for the first time since 1972. It’s been more than 20 years since a Republican won a state Senate seat. And a number of GOP strategists don’t think White is any closer to defeating Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November.
Speaking to reporters last week, Sen. Steve Daines, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of the Senate GOP, said the campaign committee is looking for “candidates who can win both the primary and the generals.” Of White, Daines said, “I think he would have a hard time winning the general election.”
Asked if the campaign committee would support White if he were to run, Daines said, “I don’t think he can win the general election.” Daines committee had warmer words to say About Joe Fraser, a retired Navy commander and business executive who was called a “political outsider and American hero” this month by an NRSC spokesman. Trump himself has not given any support in the race.
As Trump’s MAGA movement has become a dominant force in the GOP in recent years, he and allied Republicans have boosted a number of statewide candidates with spots on their pasts who are appealing to voters in battleground states. Such candidates performed particularly poorly in the 2022 elections.
In the interview as well as in long essays he posted online ahead White described himself as a loving father who cared for all of his children and called the family court system very unfair to men. White, a first-round pick in the 2012 NBA draft, initially assessed delinquent debt based on his NBA salary, though he played only a handful of games in the league as he publicly battled an anxiety disorder. The courts reduced the total monthly payments he had to make in light of the end of his NBA career, but he has struggled to make his payments ever since.
“Talk about some real issues,” White said in the interview. “A lot of people have child support. Many people have alimony. Many people owe child support. All you liberals really want to embarrass people with kids because you’re anti-human as f—. This is so. I love my children. And I’m ready for child support. I probably pay more child support than most people in this country in their lifetime. It’s really a no-brainer.”
Details of works
A court in Ramsey County, Minnesota, found White in contempt in 2018 after he failed to keep up his payments, according to court documents. After raising his monthly child support payments from $350 to $794 under his contract with Big3 Basketball, the court said he failed to meet the payments for 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was ordered to pay more than $17,000 in restitution over those three years to avoid prison. The court found that he made his payments in February 2023 and reduced the monthly amount he owed.
In a separate case in Cottonwood County, Minnesota, a court found White in contempt in 2020 for failing to comply with a child support order, according to court records there. The court found her behind in child support payments in both 2022 and 2023 and ordered her to make larger lump sum payments within weeks of hearings for both years. Prior to last month’s hearing, the court said White had complied with the terms of the contempt agreement and was paying due support. But he decided she needed to set up a structured payment plan with him to meet all of his child support obligations by July 1.
White said he was asking for back child support because of a broader effort by the media to “paint me another lover of the far right.”
“As of today, I am fully committed to my child support obligations. My debt only stems from the time I was ordered to pay child support by the court and back child support due to my NBA salary. That’s how I stayed behind,” he said. “And the interest rates are so high that if I pay my child support on time every month, the interest is the same price.”
Michael Brodkorb, a former vice chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, said Republicans “didn’t see” White’s convictions and debts and that he “wasn’t properly vetted.”
“It’s up to the public to determine whether something is fair game,” Brodkorb said of White’s insistence that the issue has nothing to do with his candidacy. “And they will decide at the end whether it is relevant to the race or not. I think they will.”
Brodkorb, who is no fan of Trump but wants to see Republicans win in Minnesota, has faced personal controversy himself. He had a serious accident while driving while drunk 11 years ago, when he was at the peak of his political career.
“It’s a bit of a con game for him to try to say these things don’t matter,” Brodkorb said. “There’s a lot of evidence that these kinds of issues, these kinds of distractions, are not good for candidates.”
White said the Minnesota GOP endorsement “has nothing to do with me deceiving people [its] I don’t know enough about my past.”
“They don’t give a damn because they know people like you are more into them than the fact that I owe tens of thousands in child support,” White said in an interview. “They know better. So you better get your head out of your a– because I’m telling you the pendulum swings both ways. I say this not as a threat, but as a warning. I see it as a real cautionary tale.”
An unusual political rise
White’s political rise and evolution is its own story. A basketball star at Iowa State University and a first-round pick of the Houston Rockets in 2012, he has battled mental health struggles and gained positive attention for his efforts to get the NBA to take mental health more seriously. He played only three games in the league.
with The killing of George Floyd In the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, White led some of them Blacks stage protests in their home state and become central figures in the protests there. appeared on MSNBC’s prime-time program to discuss issues yes, yes the heart of the movement.
Rachel Maddow’s appearance on MSNBC caught the attention of Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House official and right-wing media personality influential in the MAGA movement. Bannon then became interested in White’s leadership of protests against the Federal Reserve System in Minneapolis and an intermediary who knew both men and learned that White was a fan of Bannon’s show – connected them.
“He has rough edges,” Bannon, one of White’s most prominent boosters, said in an interview. “He has some ideas that I don’t agree with, but he is a patriot. He is a leader, a fighter. He is a rising star in the MAGA movement.”
White, who is involved in electoral politics, has attracted attention for his inflammatory language and use of epithets online. He wrote defamations about former Vice President Mike Pence, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and other political figures. used a homophobic slur – which he posted repeatedly on X – to describe the reporters who wrote stories about him.
On his podcastWhite said that Trump “can get on stage, pull his pants down, get on the podium, and I’m still never going to vote for you Democrat.”
At the convention, where he won the state GOP endorsement for Senate, White said he “unequivocally” supported Trump, adding that the election was “not about my personal flaws and shortcomings.”
He has campaigned against cutting aid to Ukraine, increasing the federal debt, undocumented immigration and “perpetual wars.” At the convention, he promised to seize all omnibus legislation—bills covering several subjects bundled together in one package.
In light of his controversy, Brodkorb said White is “the most incompetent, worst-prepared candidate endorsed by a major political party in this state in modern times.”
But White’s allies see them as more baggage than relevant biographical points for some working-class voters the party must convert to have any hope of defeating Klobuchar in the fall.
“He is far from a perfect person. It’s a very flawed tool,” Bannon said. “But the last time I looked at MAGA, we have a few flawed instruments that were doing very well.”
Darrin Rocha, a former member of the University of Minnesota Board of Trustees, nominated White at the state convention, saying he gravitated toward White after seeing grassroots conservatives surge in some of his recent speeches, adding that Bannon should be watched. On Wikipedia, because Rosha said, he is “not big on federal affairs.” He acknowledged that White had “a lot of what people would describe as baggage,” adding that his wife was concerned about White’s “salty tongue.”
“Some Republicans, somewhat surprised by my strong support for Royce and Royce’s candidacy, were concerned that Democrats would go to town on his past issues,” Rocha said. “And I just explained that this is politics; you can support Mother Teresa and people will make something out of her.”
He added: “Certainly the typical central casting has to be more interesting than the Republican candidate.”