Pastor apologizes for tweet of Clinton in blackface

An African-American pastor who has become a prominent surrogate for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump apologized Monday night for sharing a cartoon of Democrat Hillary Clinton in blackface earlier in the day.

{mosads}“I want to apologize because the last thing I want to do is to anger people. I really am a unifier,” Burns said on Monday in a live video on Periscope.

Burns said no one on the Trump campaign asked him to offer an apology, and he explained that his tweet was meant to invoke his belief that Clinton and Democrats pander to black voters.

“It was not at all my intention to offend or to not offend anyone. The last thing I want to do is to offend people,” Burns said.

“The tweet was not designed to anger or stir up the post like it did,” he continued. “It was designed to bring how I feel the very real reality as to why the Democratic Party and how I view it and have interpreted have been pandering and using black people just for their votes.”

The apology comes a few hours after Burns defended his tweet, saying that he shared it out of “frustration.”

“The tweet is a frustration that I have as a black man here in America, and how I see African-Americans in many cases suffering throughout the country,” Burns said during an interview on MSNBC.

Burns took to Twitter earlier on Monday, sharing the cartoon that showed the Democratic nominee in blackface and wearing a T-shirt that says “No hot sauce, no peace!”

The pastor, who spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month, said that he doesn’t speak on behalf for the GOP nominee.

Burn’s comments comes as Trump seeks to widen his appeal with minority voters. During recent rallies, he has said “what do you have to lose” when courting black and Hispanic voters.