Larry Elder said an argument could be made that slave owners also deserve reparations because their “property” was “taken away” from them after the Civil War. The Black conservative, who is hoping to become California’s next governor, made the comments during a July 18 episode of Candace Owens’ “The Candace Owens Show.”

“Do you know that the slave owners were compensated? After they lost their quote-on-quote ‘property,’ the government compensated slave owners,” Elder told Owens.

“So, when people talk about reparations, do they really want to have that conversation? Because like it or not, slavery was legal. Their legal property was taken away from them after the Civil War, so you could make an argument that the people that are owed reparations are not only just Black people but also the people whose quote ‘property’ was taken away after the end of the Civil War,” he added.

The two conservative hosts began discussing the topic of reparations after Owens claimed the U.S. was one of the first countries to ban the slave trade. According to Reuters, however, Denmark was the first country to ban the importation of enslaved people in 1803, followed by Britain in 1807 and the U.S. in 1808. The United States was also one of the last countries to abolish slavery, followed only by Cuba and Brazil.

Elder further said the British government compensated former slave owners with “substantial amounts of money,” preventing a civil war from breaking out in the country like it did in the U.S. According to the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, the British government distributed £20 million in compensation to former slave owners after abolishing slavery.

American slave owners in Washington, D.C. also received reparations. After passing the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862, then-President Abraham Lincoln paid former slave owners in the district around $300 per enslaved person.

Twitter users resurfaced Elder and Owens’ conversation on the platform on Tuesday (Sept. 7). “Larry Elder said slave owners deserved reparations because they lost their ‘property’ when slavery was abolished. If you don’t see a problem with that, then something is seriously wrong with you,” one person tweeted.

“Here is a video of Larry Elder making the argument for slave owners to receive reparations for losing their property (Black slaves). And, of course, Candace Owens is part of the discussion,” another added.

See a snippet from Elder and Owens’ conversation and reactions on Twitter below.