Opinion: Sen. Wendy Rogers' loyalty to a controversial legislative candidate who reportedly resorts to racial slurs should be disqualifying. That it won't be is stunning.
Laurie RobertsArizona Republic
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In December, Ari Daniel Bradshaw called out Sen. Wendy Rogers’ protégé, saying he used a racial slur to refer to a Black lawmaker.
Well, you can imagine Rogers’ reaction.
She was furious.
No, not at her protégé Steve Slaton, a Republican legislative candidate who has been accused of using the N-word to refer to Arizona’s first two Black Republican legislators, both of whom live in this rural Arizona district.
But at Bradshaw.
“You better call me now or you and your campaign are about to go down in flames,” Rogers wrote to Bradshaw, a Phoenix Republican who also is running for the Arizona House.
Slaton says the allegations aren't true
Rogers, who rose to national fame and fortune as an election denier, is a staunch defender of Slaton. She regularly campaigns with him as they run for the Legislature in rural Arizona’s District 7.
It doesn’t matter that Slaton, who owns The Trumped Store in Show Low, has been accused of stolen valor. That he runs around calling himself a Vietnam combat pilot, even though official military records say he was a helicopter repairman in Korea — one who enlisted three months after U.S. troops pulled out of Vietnam.
It doesn’t matter that he claims a fistful of medals not listed on his official military record or that he displays a Confederate flag in his store.
It doesn’t even seem to matter that several people, including the wife of a former Black lawmaker, have accused Slaton of using racial slurs — an allegation he insists is not true, just as he insists the claims of stolen valor are not true.
Wendy Rogers is standing by her man, urging people to vote for him in the six-way House Republican primary for two House seats.
Republican candidate calls out N-word use
In December, Bradshaw called out Slaton on social media, saying he used the N-word when referring to one of his opponents, Rep. David Marshall, R-Snowflake, who is Black.
Bradshaw told me on Tuesday that Slaton used the slur as the two men were talking during an event last year. He said hepublicly called Slaton out after learning that he’d previously used the word to refer to former Rep. Walt Blackman, who also is Black and also running in this month’s six-way primary.
Rogers’ response was to issue threats on social media and in a phone call, the audio of which was posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday by the Mountain Daily Star.
During that December phone call, Rogers warned Bradshaw that his accusation against Slaton was “defamatory.”
“I heard him say that in front of me,” Bradshaw replied. “I heard him call Dave the N-word, literally in front of me.”
Rogers tells Bradshaw he's 'playing with fire'
“You are really playing with fire here,” Rogers warned, “and I can’t talk to you anymore if you continue to put stuff out that’s incendiary. I will give you his phone number and you can call him, but I think you don’t realize the hot water you’re stepping into even if you think you heard what you heard. You are really playing with fire, legally, politically and in all respects.”
Bradshaw: “But, Wendy, how? If I heard him say that, shouldn’t I let people know that he said that?”
Rogers: “You need to talk to him. I’m a facilitator here, trying to have Republicans work together.I think it’s very dangerous … I don’t think you have a clue how dangerous what you’re doing has been.”
Rogers didn’t reply on Tuesday to a request for comment. I can understand why, given her admiration for white supremacists and public hangings and such.
Bradshaw said he was astonished by Rogers’ reaction.
“She’s just dismissive in the call and really couldn’t care less,” he said. “A quarter to third of my family is Black, so I was just flabbergasted.”
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Slaton pays Rogers’ nephew in Florida $1,000 a month as a campaign consultant. Spence Rogers’ Go Right Strategies had collected more than $25,000 as of March, according to Slaton’s latest campaign finance report.
Wife of Black lawmaker says she's heard the slur
Slaton, meanwhile, insists that he never used the slur and suggested the audio was a fake.
“As usual, Ari Bradshaw is a liar who uses fake audio and fake video with AI,” he said via email.
“He has been caught before. I never used that word against anyone. In fact, this is the typical hit piece accusation that crazy Kristie Blackman was caught lying about before until she was caught by Jordan Conradson. Typical gaslighting.”
This GOP primary races: Could help flip the Legislature
Conradson works for the Gateway Pundit, a bankrupt gossip rag that poses as journalism.
Kristie Blackman accused Conradson in 2022 of sending racist texts to her husband and daughter. The Department of Public Safety investigated but could not determine who sent the messages.
Most stunning? Rogers could win
Kristie Blackman told me Slaton called her husband, Walt, the N-word in front of her in 2020 and says she’s heard from others that he uses the slur.
“This is nothing new,” she said. “He has been calling my husband that and Wendy is no better. She is no better. Wendy’s just as bad, anybody who condones and hangs out with that.”
Rogers, who supposedly lives in a Flagstaff trailer on the edge of the legislative district and not in her $750,000 Chandler home, has raised nearly a half a million dollars for her campaign, thanks to constant fundraising pleas to Trump supporters who live outside the state.
She faces Republican Rep. David Cook, a longtime rancher from Globe, in the July 30 primary.
And the most stunning part of this stunning story? She’ll probably win.
Reach Roberts atlaurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at@LaurieRoberts.
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