An editorial in the Press Herald, speaking for the state’s voters, said ME apologized to America for electing, then re-electing a “governor who is unfit for high office”. Drew Gattine, whom he believed to be among the people calling him a racist.
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In a statement, LePage confirmed he left the voicemail and said it was in response to an accusation of racism from Gattine, which the ME governor said he takes “very seriously”. I would like to talk to you about your comments about my being a racist, you cocksucker.
“I want you to prove I’m a racist”.
Afterward, LePage said the statement was a mistake, and told journalists, “If you want to make it racist, go ahead and do what you want”. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist c**cksucker. You … Drew Gattine, to make the recording public and said, “I’m after you”. I want you to record this and make it public because I’m after you. “Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week”, LePage said in a statement. But if you call LePage a racist, he won’t stand for it. “I would point it right between his eyes because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he’s been in this Legislature to help move the state forward”.
On Friday, LePage first denied that ME police officers were racially profiling people ― an obvious concern if they really are arresting nearly exclusively people of color for drug crimes.
LePage, whose second and final term as governor ends in 2019, has a history of drawing attention for his blunt remarks. The uncensored audio message, also shared with CNN, contains several explicit phrases. “The same day, a Republican governor was shouting antigay slurs into a political opponent’s voice mail”, said T.J. Helmstetter, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.
“Obviously that message is upsetting, inappropriate and uncalled for”, Gattine is quoted as saying.
LePage, who’s white, was accused of making racially insensitive comments Wednesday at a town hall in North Berwick, where he said photos he’s collected in a binder of drug dealers arrested in the state showed that 90 percent of them “are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut; the Bronx; and Brooklyn”.
The governor held a news conference Friday in Augusta where he again defended himself for leaving the vulgar voicemail on the phone of Democratic Rep. He later apologized, saying he meant to say “Maine women” and not “white women”.
And Thursday one of Donald Trump’s biggest allies – Gov. Paul LePage of ME – showed (once again) that he’s homophobic in a obscenity-laden voice mail in which he insists he’s not racist. Gattine said there was no apology on the voicemail. It is the absolute worst, most vile thing you can call a person. He maintained that Thursday morning, reporters had asked him to respond to lawmakers calling him racist.
Yet, he would not call the ME governor a racist when asked if sounding liking a racist made LePage one.
“So I called Gattine and used the worst word I could think of”, LePage continued.
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At a news conference later, LePage said that he’d made a verbal mistake in comments about drug dealers, but insisted his remarks were not racist.
