Lawmaker to resign after using racial slur, dropping pants on TV

ATLANTA — The state lawmaker who exposed himself and yelled racial slurs on provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen’s new cable TV series will resign, according to a spokesman for Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.

Rep. Jason Spencer will step down at the end of the month, spokesman Kaleb McMichen told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Tuesday.

In Sunday night’s broadcast of Cohen’s Showtime series “Who Is America?” Cohen poses as an Israeli military expert who persuades Spencer to take part in several outlandish exercises. The lawmaker is told they’re making a counterterrorism video.

Spencer repeatedly shouts a racial slur for black people after Cohen tells him the tactic is useful for drawing bystanders’ attention to an unfolding attack.

He also drops his pants, then his underwear, before backing his exposed rear end toward Cohen while shouting “USA!” and “America!” Cohen told Spencer the move would incite fear in homophobic jihadists. The segment also shows Spencer speaking with a mock Asian accent while pretending to use a selfie-stick to surreptitiously insert a camera phone under a Muslim woman’s burqa.

Ralston and others called for his immediate resignation.

In a statement Monday, Spencer apologized for the “ridiculously ugly episode,” but he initially refused to step down.

Spencer lost the Republican primary in May, but he could have remained in public office through the November election.