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Fact-Checking Gov. LePage's Statements On Drugs, Race

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Maine Gov. Paul LePage speaks during a conference of New England's governors and eastern Canada's premiers to discuss closer regional collaboration, August 2016 in Boston. (Elise Amendola/AP)
Maine Gov. Paul LePage speaks during a conference of New England's governors and eastern Canada's premiers to discuss closer regional collaboration, August 2016 in Boston. (Elise Amendola/AP)

Maine Gov. Paul LePage has come under fire over the past week for several inflammatory remarks.

First, there was the expletive-laden voicemail left for Maine state Rep. Drew Gattine last Thursday, after the governor believed that Gattine called him a racist.

Then on Friday, the governor held a news conference where he denied that Maine police officers were racially profiling people. He followed up his comments by saying, "When you go to war, if you know the enemy, the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, you shoot at red, don’t you?" He continued, "You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in, are people of color or people of Hispanic origin."

Monday, while in Boston for the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, LePage again brought up race, saying, "The heroin, fentanyl arrests are not white people. They're Hispanic and they're black and they're from Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn." He added, "So, I didn't make up the rules. That's how it turns out."

Now, Tuesday, LePage is apologizing, at least for the voicemail to Gattine. He said on the George Hale Ric Tyler Show on WVOM, "When I was called a racist, I just lost it. And there's no excuse, it's unacceptable, it is totally my fault." He apologized to the Maine people, Gattine and his family and to his own family.

We talk about the facts behind LePage's latest statements.

Guests

Edward Murphy, reporter for the Portland Press Herald. He tweets @EdMurphyPPH.

Alison Beyea, executive director of the ACLU of Maine. She tweets @ACLUBeyea.

This segment aired on August 30, 2016.

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