SC Rep. Matthews won’t resign or suspend Senate bid after leaked video, campaign says

South Carolina Rep. Krystle Matthews, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, says she has no plans to step down from her House seat or suspend her Senate campaign, despite calls from even within own party to resign.

The Berkeley Democrat is facing pressure to resign after Project Veritas, a conservative activist organization that secretly tapes progressive politicians and edits the tapes often showing a politician in an unflattering light, released a second video this week of Matthews making disparaging comments about white people.

“You ought to know who you’re dealing with. You’ve got to treat them like sh--. That’s the only way they’ll respect you,” Matthews says in the recording while speaking to an undercover reporter with the group, noting she lives in a mostly white town and her district leans Republican.

“I keep them right here, like under my thumbs. That’s where I keep them. You have to. Otherwise they get out of control like kids.”

At a Friday press conference, Matthews said she was making reference to elected white officials, not her constituents.

“If that’s what you want to believe after all the work I’ve done in this state, run with it,” Matthews told a handful of reporters in North Charleston. “I’m not here to convince y’all that I am not a racist. I know exactly who I am.”

Matthews, who is Black, was elected to the S.C. House in 2018. Her legislative bio says she is an engineering planner.

She is seeking reelection in November, and is being challenged by Republican Jordan Pace to represent the 117th House District. In addition to her House run, she also is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in a long-shot campaign to knock off Republican Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and one of the top fundraisers in Congress.

On Friday, Scott, told the Myrtle Beach Sun News Matthews should apologize, but stopped short of calling her to suspend her Senate bid, saying instead that South Carolina voters should “decide her fate.”

South Carolina Republicans, including Attorney General Alan Wilson and U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-Laurens, have jumped on Matthew’s remarks in the leaked video, demanding she resign.

“Holding elective office comes with inherent responsibility,” Wilson said. “Rep. Matthews’ statements and subsequent inaction shows her disdain for that responsibility.

It’s not only Republicans voicing their disapproval.

State Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, who serves in the House with Matthews, also called for her resignation.

In his statement, Bamberg referenced the first leaked video that was recorded earlier this year and released by Project Veritas in June. The video showed a recorded phone call between Matthews and a South Carolina inmate. On the call, Matthews says, in part, to the inmate, “Find me someone from your family that don’t even know you donating to my campaign and put that s--- under they names.”

“No candidate, let alone a sitting member of the S.C. House, should encourage or joke about violating state or federal election laws just to get extra votes,” Bamberg, an attorney, said in a statement. “She did that. Gangs in our state are too often responsible for the unnecessary loss of life and wasting of brilliant minds for so many young men in the Black community.

“Washington D.C. does not need more toxicity and neither does South Carolina. Ignorance is not bliss.”

Calling Bamberg out by name, Matthews said her House colleague “got all in his feelings” and chose “the coward’s way out.” In response, Bamberg told The State newspaper, “Instead of exhibiting leadership, she decides that it’s smarter to just lie on a Friday afternoon and hope that people get distracted.”

So far, Bamberg remains the only member of the House Democratic Caucus to publicly call on Matthews to resign, but Bamberg told reporters Thursday that many in the caucus are talking about it.

He was joined later Thursday by Joe Cunningham, the Democratic nominee for governor.

“There is absolutely no place in our political discourse for the kind of rhetoric. I heard from Rep. Matthews in the video in question,” Cunningham said. “The Democratic Party cannot and should not tolerate such behavior from our elected officials and candidates and we must be consistent in calling out prejudice and hateful comments wherever it exists.”

House Minority leader Todd Rutherford told The State newspaper that Matthews’ comments were wrong, he does not support them nor does he support her saying them.

“I don’t think there’s any place in politics for her type of comments, but I have not verified the authenticity of her statement, and as a criminal lawyer, I believe that everybody deserves a chance to tell their story,” the Richland Democrat said. “I think that the people of South Carolina deserve more than that. I think she needs to answer for her comments.”

Rutherford continued, “No one in the Democratic Caucus supports her comments and she owes every one an apology. But it’s up to the voters who send her (here), and we’ve seen far worse from the Republican Party and nothing on their behalf to get members to apologize, even racist statements that came from their own president.”

Assistant House Minority Leader Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, said he was wowed the first time he heard Matthews speak to a crowd, calling her ability to connect with people “authentic” and calling her as a person “real.”

“The key to being both of these things is that you have to absolutely believe in what you’re saying at all times. That’s why the words I heard her speak were so painful to hear,” Ott said in a provided statement. “I heard that same conviction. I heard that same belief. Reading her statement yesterday made it even worse. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. What Krystle said was wrong.”

Krystle Matthews

In her initial statement Thursday, Matthews acknowledged she spoke with the the group and demanded Project Veritas release the entire recording of her conversation with the undercover reporter.

That undercover reporter, she said, introduced himself to her as someone wanting to get involved in her campaign with a group or website focused on energizing Black voters.

“Regardless of race, I love everyone. One thing you can learn from Project Veritas’s first audio attack on me, is obviously I have no biases toward a certain ethnic group,” Matthews said in her statement. “I expressed my disgust for Black legislators who exhibit the same hypocrisy as MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans.”

Matthews said Thursday that she never said she would be an “orthodox candidate.”

“Unfortunately, serving in the State House has given me a direct view of the treachery a lot of the legislators I previously had respect for are indulging in,” she said.

Doubling down on her statement Friday, Matthews said she had no plans to step down, and said she had done nothing wrong.

“The people put me here and the people want a fighter,” she said.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson said state law prevents party executive committees from replacing a candidate on the ballot in this type of situation and the decision remains with voters.

He called Matthews’ comments, however, a “serious distraction.”

“This is obviously a serious distraction from other Democratic candidates running for office and most importantly a distraction from the Republicans in the General Assembly who are trying take away the freedom and the rights of women from women,” Robertson said, referring to the ongoing abortion debate. “If I were advising her campaign, I would tell her that because of what’s happening in the General Assembly that she needs to focus on winning reelection to the State House of Representatives.”

Robertson declined to comment on Matthews’ Senate campaign.

Senior editor Maayan Schechter contributed to this report.