Main Gov. Paul LePage called for a press conference Friday in which he apologized for a comment he made Wednesday about out-of-state drug dealers impregnating "young white" girls, saying he didn't mean to inject race into the discussion of Maine's heroin epidemic.
"I was going impromptu, and my brain didn't catch up to my mouth. Instead of 'Maine women,' I said 'white women,'" he said, according to the Associated Press.
The comments in question were made at a town hall meeting Wednesday where LePage said that Maine needed to beef up law enforcement in order to combat its heroin crisis. There he argued that out-of-state drug dealers with names like "D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty" come to the state and sell their drugs before going back home.
He continued: "Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave. Which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue that we've gotta deal with down the road. We're gonna make 'em very severe penalties," according to Wonkette.
The comments quickly gained national attention, with many calling them racist, accusing LePage of injecting race into a non-race related issue.
LePage argued that his remarks didn't have anything to do with race, arguing that he tried to explain that Maine is essentially all white.
He also said he didn't mean to imply that people with names like "D-Money" or "Smoothie" were black.
"I don't know where they're from. I don't know if they're white, black, Asian," he said.
LePage is well known for speaking his mind, almost to the point of self-destruction. While on the campaign trail, he said that he'd tell President Barack Obama to "go to hell," and soon after being elected, he told the Portland chapter of the NAACP to "kiss my butt." Currently he's in the midst of a dispute with political opponents seeking to punish him for his actions that caused charitable organization Good Will-Hinckley to rescind its offer to hire Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves as president.
Though LePage has apologized for accidentally injecting race into Maine's heroin problem, he said he isn't sorry about bringing the issue to the forefront.
"I made a mistake and I'm not perfect, but I will not stop correcting myself and bringing the issue at hand: drugs, drugs and more drugs," he said. "We have people dying. We have families being destroyed."
