A former New York GOP gubernatorial candidate and ally of President-elect Donald Trump insisted Tuesday "I certainly am not a racist" in a defiant apology for a death wish rant against President Barack Obama.
In the lengthy mea culpa, Carl Paladino explained his tirade was not supposed to show up in print.
"I made a mistake," Paladino said in the statement to Buffalo news outlet Artvoice. "I could not have made a worse choice in the words I used to express my feelings."
The insults was contained in answers to an Artvoice questionnaire; in two of the questions published last week, Paladino said his 2017 hope was for Obama to die from mad-cow disease and first lady Michelle Obama, to "return to being a male and . . . live comfortably in a cave."
The remarks triggered a call for his resignation from the Buffalo School Board, including from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y.
But Paladino defiantly refused.
"No, I'm not leaving the school board, not when it's time to help implement the real choice elements of Trump's plan for education reform," he said. "I've spent years dedicated to the mission to defeat the thought that the liberal progressive elitist establishment can continue to hold our minority children captive in the cycle of poverty simply to provide their voting base.
"I don't intend to yield to the fanatics among my adversaries: I certainly am not a racist." Paladino said he "did not mean to send those [questionnaire] answers to Artvoice."
"Not that it makes any difference, because what I wrote was inappropriate under any circumstance," he said. "I filled out the survey to send to a couple friends and forwarded it to them not realizing that I didn't hit 'forward' I hit 'reply.'"
"I never intended to hurt the minority community who I spent years trying to help out of the cycle of poverty in our inner cities," he added. "To them I apologize."
But he did not back down from his criticism of Obama.
"Your survey questions provided me with the spark to vent and write deprecating humor about a bad president for whom the main stream media continues to seek an undeserved legacy," he wrote, adding: "It's been a sick, combative year for America. We changed the direction of our country and beat back the demons for a few decades. I am proud to have been a part of the making of history."
Paladino, who ran against Cuomo for governor in 2010, and has said he is considering challenging him again in 2018, served as co-chairman of Trump's New York campaign, delivering a fiery speech in support of him during the state party's convention in March, per The Wall Street Journal.
But a spokeswoman for the president-elect called Paladino's widely condemned remarks about the Obamas "reprehensible," the Journal reported.
"This buries him," Tom Doherty, a Republican strategist and former aide to Gov. George Pataki, R-N.Y., told the Journal about the controversy.
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