Carl Paladino, a Republican House candidate in New York, backed by GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y) said Black Americans are kept ‘hungry and dumb’ and are ‘conditioned’ to vote for Democrats. But insists he is not a racist.
Paladino, a New York real estate developer and failed gubernatorial candidate made the comment during an interview in 2016 with local Buffalo radio station WBEN while he was serving on the Buffalo school board, according to CNN’s KFILE. He was defending himself against allegations that he is racist based on comments he made in the past.
“I don’t think of myself in any way as a racist,” Paldino said, then went on to prove otherwise.
“Someday, somebody like a Donald Trump is gonna come in and force that stuff on them — OK. And maybe then, OK, we’ll get some change because the Black people deserve better,” he said. “They shouldn’t be held captive in our inner cities. They shouldn’t be held hungry and dumb so as to provide a base for the Democratic Party, that’s what’s been going on. You can’t teach them differently because they’ve been so conditioned to think that way. And that is so, so wrong. And I’ll fight for that stuff until the day I die.”
Paladino has a long history of making racists statements. In 2016 he said he wants to see President Obama die from mad cow disease and then-First Lady Michelle Obama “return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.”
Paladino announced his run for Congress for New York’s 23rd Congressional District weeks ago after Republican Rep. Chris Jacobs dropped his reelection bid. Jacobs came out in support of gun control after the mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y. and Uvalde, Texas, and became a target for conservatives.
Stefanik quickly endorsed him, calling him a “job creator and conservative outsider who will be a tireless fighter for the people of New York.”
She stood by Paladino earlier this month when if was revealed that he praised Hitler in an interview last year saying he is the “kind of leader we need today. We need somebody inspirational. We need somebody that is a doer, has been there and done it.”
