During a lengthy appearance on Montgomery radio NewsTalk 93.1's "Health & Wealth" program last week, former U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) said Communist China played a role in his U.S. Senate Republican primary defeat last year.

Despite an up-and-down campaign throughout the 2022 election cycle, Brooks surged in the late stages of the Republican primary to earn a spot in the Republican primary runoff against Katie Britt.

Britt would defeat Brooks in the runoff and ultimately win the 2022 U.S. Senate election to become Alabama's junior U.S. Senator.

However, Brooks suggested Britt may have had some help from China.

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"Communist China knew that I believed in fair trade policies and practices and that I abhor this hundreds of billions of dollars of American money hemorrhaging to China each year because of these unfair trade practices," he said. "And I'm also very, very cognizant that it is impossible for American manufacturing to compete with hundreds of millions of slave laborers over in Communist China."

"People may say, 'Wait a second, there's not slave [labor in China],'" Brooks continued. "What do you think communism is? You've got a ruling class that tells everybody else what they've got to do. Now, I don't think Communist China has taken it to the point Russia has where you have these what are, in effect, criminal organizations running Russia, and you've got these oligarchs who are multi-billionaires because they've been assigned the profits of different segments of the Russian economy. That is what China is doing."

"But when you've got a government that can dictate where you can work, when you have to work, what you're going to work on and how much you're going to get paid, that, in effect, makes you a slave. And that slave labor is at a huge competitive advantage over American workers and American manufacturing, and that is one place where we have to level the playing field. Communist China is very much aware of my views, and so they did everything they could to assist the election of somebody else to the United States Senate in 2022."

Jeff Poor is the executive editor of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email jeff.poor@1819News.com or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.

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