Maine Gov. LePage Apologizes For Racially Charged 'Young White Girls' Remarks

AUGUSTA, Maine (CBSNewYork) - Less than 48 hours after using racially-charged language to explain his state's drug epidemic, Maine Gov. Paul LePage at a Friday news conference explained his wording "slip-up" but accused the press of trying to twist his words. LePage had endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for president earlier in the week.

"I made one slip-up," LePage conceded. "I may have made many slip-ups. I was going impromptu in my brain, didn't catch up to my mouth. Instead of saying, 'Maine women,' I said, 'White women.' I'm not going to apologize to the Maine women for that because if you go to Maine you will see we are essentially 95 percent white."

At times defiant, the Republican governor told reporters Friday that he never intended to inject race into the debate over Maine's heroin epidemic.

LePage is white. On Wednesday, he described out-of-state drug dealers as "guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty."

"They come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home," LePage said. "Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road."

The comment drew immediate criticism.

The state Senate Democratic leader says the comments were at best "careless or poorly stated.''

The president of the NAACP's Bangor chapter called the remarks "sad'' and "foolish.''