Perry Speaks on Racial Slur Controversy

Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he agrees that a racial slur painted on a rock at a hunting ranch his family leased for years “is a very offensive word,” but insists that it was painted over when it was discovered in the early 1980s.

Asked Wednesday in an interview with Fox News’s Juliet Huddy why some people say they’ve seen the racial slur in recent years, the Republican presidential candidate said they were just wrong.

“I think there were some very much and strong inconsistencies and just infactual information that was in that story,” Perry told Huddy. “I know for a fact in 1984 that rock was painted over. It was painted over very soon.”

“My family did that. We painted over that rock and it stayed that way,” Perry added. “I have no idea where or why people would say that they had seen that rock, because that’s just not the fact.”

Perry campaign officials, responding to suggestions that the governor turned a blind eye to the slur painted in block letters at the entrance to the hunting camp, said earlier this week that Perry didn’t hunt at the camp until 1997 and was last there in 2006.