Just before Christmas, Carl Paladino, the co-chair of Donald Trump's New York campaign effort, landed in some very hot water for making comments about the Obamas to the ArtVoice, a newsweekly in Buffalo, when answering a survey about his hopes for 2017. Paladino wished death on the president and top aide Valerie Jarrett, and said of Michelle Obama, "I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla."
It took him four days, but Paladino has finally apologized—sort of. In a very long statement issued on Tuesday, Paladino says that his comments were intended to be sent only to a few friends, but that he hit "reply" instead of "forward."
The Associated Press points out that this contradicts other statements Paladino has made about his comments. He had mentioned to several journalists that the comments were purposeful, and told one that he made them specifically to anger a black editor at the paper.
In the new statement, though, Paladino floats the "reply" idea, and says, simply, "All men make mistakes." He did cop, though, to making some bad word choices:
Paladino is a member of the Buffalo School Board, though there have been calls for him to resign. In the statement, he makes it clear he has no intention of doing so:
You can, if you dare, read the entirety of Paladino's statement here.
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