MSNBC host Joy Reid used a racial slur Wednesday against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, calling him "Uncle Clarence."
"If somehow [the Trump campaign] manage to stumble into the Supreme Court, do any of you guys trust Uncle Clarence and Amy Coney Barrett and those guys to actually follow the letter of the law? No," she said. "It is a completely politicized Supreme Court that you can't just trust that they're going to do the right thing."
The "Uncle Tom" slur derives from the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and is a derogatory term for an African-American man viewed as overly deferential to whites. The staunchly liberal Reid has also referred to "Uncle Clarence" in a pair of recent tweets.
Reid also came under fire in 2017 and 2018 after homophobic blog posts she wrote from the 2000s came to light. She later denied she had written some of them and blamed hackers for inserting the offensive content onto her blog. But she also admitted there was no proof any hacking occurred.
Her star, however, has since risen at MSNBC. Formerly a weekend host, Reid was promoted to hosting the weekday show The Reidout in July, and she has helped lead MSNBC's political coverage throughout the year.