Bubba Wallace Reveals a Part of Him Wanted to 'Stoop Down' to Donald Trump's Level Following Rope Backlash

NASCAR racer Bubba Wallace is speaking out about the rope incident from earlier this year, as well as the ensuing backlash, and he revealed that a part of him wanted to "stoop down" to Donald Trump's level. Wallace's comments come more than a month after the U.S. president criticized Wallace over the discovery of a perceived noose in his garage, which turned out not have been a hate crime. Trump called the incident a "hoax" and stated that he thinks Wallace should have apologized to NASCAR fans.

In a new interview with the Today show, Wallace addressed Trump's comments, saying,"There was a part of me that wanted to stoop down to his level, but after a lot of consideration and a lot of stern looks from my girlfriend about the right thing to do, I felt like, you know what, somehow, some way, I'm going to go higher than the highest seat in the office. And love won, and love wins every day." Wallace went on to say, "There's a lot of hate in this world, a lot of things that are still going on to this day, but at the end of the day, if we could come together and show so much love, compassion, and understanding, we will get to a much better place that we need to."

Elsewhere in the interview, Wallace said, "It's been a crazy process ever since all of that. Things have kind of calmed down a lot on that side of things, but things have been really moving in a positive momentum as far as sponsorship stuff. It's middle of the season. So we got a lot of moving pieces to figure out, but things are finally starting to get nailed down in place." He continued: "But just went through a lot through those last couple of months, but it made me a better person. It kind of made me understand what I was told years ago, about keeping your head on a swivel. And it's all coming around in more aspects than just at the racetrack. It's part of everyday life. So we're all good, though."

The main reason for Wallace's Today show appearance was to reveal some big sponsorship news. "We are really, really proud to announce the partnership with DoorDash. They will be jumping on our race car, number 43 Chevrolet there, as you could see, for seven races this year. Multi-year deal. Biggest deal, one of the things I've been praying for for a really long time." He added, "So these last couple of weeks we've announced a lot of new partnerships coming in, DoorDash, Columbia, Beats. I'm just a walking ambassador right now, and I love it. I'm very thankful for all these companies and organizations to want to be a part of this journey."