In a video posted to YouTube, controversial conservative pundit Jason Whitlock has accused former NBA player Matt Barnes of lying to Vice President Kamala Harris in a recent interview Barnes conducted.

Barnes was speaking to Harris for his ‘All the Smoke’ podcast alongside co-host Stephen Jackson.

In that interview, Barnes opened up about racial terrorism that he experienced first-hand in Sacramento – when the former NBAer claims that the Ku Klux Klan came and vandalized his high school and almost burned it down after he defended his younger sister who was called names.

Barnes has been telling this story for years, something that Whitlock recognized, but on his show ‘Fearless’ he tried debunking that account.

‘Wow, the KKK went after Matt Barnes in 1998 in Sacramento, California,’ Whitlock said on his show. ‘Something about the journalist in me said, “Man, the KKK in 1998? Went after Matt Barnes in California?”

Barnes (center) interviewed Kamala Harris on his ‘All the Smoke’ podcast and re-told a story about how he and his high school were targeted by the KKK after Barnes defended his sister

‘Now I’m from Indiana. The KKK was strong in Indiana. 30 minutes from Indianapolis in Martinsville, Indiana the KKK [was] very strong. But that’s me a boy in the 80’s.

‘Matt Barnes is talking about 1998 in California, the KKK came after him. This is incredible,’ Whitlock said before playing a clip from about a month ago of Barnes explaining how a Klan member in jail ‘greenlit’ a hit on him for beating up another kid in defense of his sister.

‘They wanted Matt Barnes dead for a high school fight. This is incredible, this is the stuff of movies. Look at Matt Barnes, his life is on the line for protecting his sister,’ Whitlock said, incredulously.

After two more clips – including one from Vice News – Whitlock continued: ‘He’s been telling this story since 2014, he’s now telling it in front of the Vice President. it’s the centerpiece of Matt Barnes trying to cast himself as a political figure. 

‘He’s talked about running for political office… Matt Barnes has big political aspirations and he’s building this racial narrative that he’s the new John Lewis, the short congressman that passed away and was on the bridge in Selma, Alabama and rode that to political power.

‘There’s a gimmick and a scheme, and I’m not calling John Lewis a gimmick and a scheme, I’m talking about what we’ve seen today there’s a pattern here of the “mixed nuts,” the interracial kids, the biracial kids that are looking for their “black moment”, that wanna be the next Colin Kaepernick, that wanna be the next John Lewis. They all wrap themselves in racial victimhood.

‘And so in that Vice [clip], they showed newspaper headlines from that day. I wish that they had read the newspaper articles from 1998 because they contradict Matt Barnes and the story he’s been telling since 2014 and the story he’s parading around everywhere. Matt Barnes was talking completely different in 1998.’

Whitlock points to an April 1998 edition of the Sacramento Bee which quotes Barnes as saying that he didn’t think that the fight he got into was ‘a racial thing’ as evidence of him lying

Whitlock then showed an article from the Sacramento Bee which claimed that ‘hardcore racism may have very little to do with [the] assault on Del Campo [High School]… Interviews with Del Campo students, administrators, sheriff’s deputies and Barnes indicate racism is an excuse this time, a cover for something more childish than disgusting.’

Also included in that article was a quote from Barnes, who said, ‘I don’t think it’s a racial thing. I haven’t really had any racial problems in four years at Del Campo. I’ve had them when we’ve visited other schools, but I expect that. This is more about other things, about me being a jock and hanging out with friends who are jocks. Some kids don’t like that. We’ve had some problems.’

Whitlock pulled up another article from the Sacramento Bee, highlighting how Barnes was involved in multiple physical altercations while a senior at Del Campo – including when he broke up a fight.

‘Let me pause for a moment there: Matt Barnes is saying this whole incident was driven by “oh someone called my sister the n-word and I took off on ’em and beat them up.” In 1998, the newspaper article, in real time, says “the latest incident came last week, when Barnes broke up a fight”.’

‘This is what was written in 1998, this is what was said in 1998. The story is now completely different. I’m reading the article and there’s another article, you can go and find it for yourself… there’s no reporting of this mannequin with Barnes’ jersey hanging from a noose. No mention of that. None.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to Barnes through his podcast production company for comment on this matter.