Former South Carolina Democratic party chairman Dick Harpootlian finally clarified that his comments on Friday about South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley weren’t racist. Even better — they’re sexist!
Last week, Harpootlian told the Republican Governor to go “back to wherever the hell she came from.” This week, he explained he was only ordering her to “go back to being an accountant in a dress store.”
When the former South Carolina Democratic party chair made his original comments last Friday, many thought it seemed liked a slam on her family’s background, since both of Haley’s parents immigrated from India.
But on Tuesday, the Democrat finally clarified that’s not what he meant at all.
“All I’m suggesting is she needs to go back to being an accountant in a dress store rather than being this fraud of a governor that we have,” he told MSNBC.
Haley once worked for her parent’s clothing business, Exotica International, taking over the bookkeeping at the age of 13.
Harpootlian has dished vicious attacks on Haley before. During last year’s Democratic National Convention, he said she was “down in the bunker á la Eva Braun,” referencing Hitler’s mistress. He clarified that he didn’t mean to insinuate that Haley was a Nazi, but only meant that she had insulated herself from the media.
The Columbia trial lawyer refused to apologize even after fellow Democrats asked him to. “Hell no. What am I apologizing for?’ he asked CNN, before later adding, “So she has some hurt feelings? I didn’t know she had feelings.”
A spokesman for Haley called Harpootlian’s most recent comments “the lowest common denominator.”
“Fortunately, the people of South Carolina are better than Harpootlian and his ilk, and we have faith that they will see right through their consistent attempts to play to the lowest common denominator,” Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey told BuzzFeed.
Watch Harpootlian’s sexist comments below.
