LePage expressed regret for threatening Gattine, and said he wants to meet with him in person.
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LePage’s latest outburst came after a newspaper reporter told the two-term, Tea Party-backed governor that state Representative Drew Gattine had described the governor as racist for focusing on black people as bearing primary responsibility for the drug trade in the state.
Democratic lawmakers last week warned that LePage was coming unhinged and called for a political intervention with LePage.
“This is a man on a mission to invoke fear and violence”, said Justin Alfond, the Democratic leader of the state Senate.
“I’m after you”, LePage said on the voicemail, before telling reporters he wished it were 1825 so he could challenge Gattine to a duel and point a gun between his eyes.
Joyce said she voted for the cancellation of the event out of respect for Gattine and a “duty to act responsibly” and not host a potentially controversial event at the youth center.
Trump has also praised LePage, saying that he would offer him a role in his administration “if he were available”.
Though he initially declined to rule out a resignation, LePage paraphrased Mark Twain later Tuesday when he tweeted “the reports of my political demise are greatly exaggerated”.
Speaking Tuesday on WVOM-FM radio, LePage apologized for his tirade last week against Rep.
In his radio interview Tuesday, LePage, 67, said he didn’t know if he would complete his term but was “looking at all options”.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Monday that it was a mistake for Maine Gov. Paul LePage to try to paint the ongoing opioid epidemic as a racial issue.
Previously, the governor has complained about out-of-state drug dealers named “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” impregnating young white girls and has blamed a rise in infectious diseases on immigrants without providing data.
“I was talking about the trafficking, and if legislators think it is something different, then they should have been attending, really, because I think it’s pretty clear that I have been talking about traffickers”, LePage said.
At a town hall in North Berwick last Wednesday, LePage was asked about attracting minority-owned businesses to ME given “the toxic environment that you create”.
LePage said his repeated mentioning of the race of drug traffickers is relevant because when you go to war “you shoot at the enemy”.
In 2014, according to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Service, 1,211 people were arrested for selling or making drugs in Maine.
“I don’t ask them to come to Maine and sell their poison, but they come and I will tell you that 90-plus percent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ringed binder, are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Conn., the Bronx and Brooklyn [in New York City]”. Overall, Maine Republican officials are questioning LePage’s professionalism and stability. But any possible ramifications against LePage – who has repeatedly avoided punishment and retained his base of political support – are unclear.
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Thibodeau and other Republican leaders met with LePage on Monday night at Blaine House, the governor’s mansion in Augusta. He discussed taking what he called “corrective action”, noting that the Maine Republican party had its doubts about whether he could improve the situation.
