Maine Gov. Offers Nonpology For Racist Heroin Comments

On Wednesday, Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) made racially-charged comments about the state's heroin problem. The governor suggested that drug dealers from outside of the state travel to Maine, sell drugs, and get "white girls" pregnant. LePage held a press conference Friday to address his controversial remarks. "These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty — these types of guys," LePage said at an event Wednesday evening. "They come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home... half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing, because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road." LePage's comments were picked up by national news outlets. At the press conference Friday, LePage offered a non-apology for his statements, saying, "My brain was slower than my mouth," in reference to the comments. "Instead of saying Maine women, I said white women, and I'm not going to apologize to the Maine women for that," LePage said Friday, adding that Maine is 95% white. LePage, who started the conference with a Rocky quote, spent the majority of his speech admonishing reporters for publicizing his comments. According to LePage, many political reporters are more interested in sharing stories of legislative disagreement than stories of political achievements and goals. The governor also told a reporter that her question about his comments' effect on the black community was "inappropriate" because he didn't specify the races of the alleged drug traffickers. "If you want to make it racist, go ahead, do whatever you want," LePage said Friday. "I made a mistake, and I'm not perfect."