A top New York ally of Donald Trump apologized Tuesday for saying he wished President Obama dies of mad cow disease and that First Lady Michelle Obama lives in a cave.
Buffalo businessman and 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino ate humble pie after critics slammed his remarks in a Buffalo alternative weekly paper as racist and called for his ouster as a member of the Buffalo school board.
“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. To them, I apologize,” Paladino said in an open letter emailed to supporters and the media.
Paladino, who was New York co-chair of the Trump campaign, said an email survey he received from the weekly paper ArtVoice came at an “emotional moment” after hearing that Obama discuss the slaughter in Aleppo, Syria.
He said did not mean to send the “deprecating humor” to the paper, but to friends. He said he realized after the fact that he hit reply to ArtVoice instead.
“I wanted to say something as sarcastic and hurtful as possible about the people (the Obamas) so responsible for the hurt and suffering of so many others,” Paladino said in the apology.
“I was wired up, primed to be human and make a mistake. I could have not made a worse choice in the words I used to express my feelings.”
He added, “What is horrible is explaining to my 17-year-old daughter how her hero could be so stupid.”
Paladino was one of dozens of people Art Voice had queried about their New Year’s wishes.
Paladino responded that he hoped: “Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Hereford. He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to Valerie Jarrett, who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a jihadi cellmate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her,.”
Asked who he’d most like to see go in 2017, he replied: “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.”