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A Trump administration official reportedly called Saturday the Florida Governors race, which includes a candidate who could be the first black governor of the state, the "cotton picker" is important. "
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue used the racist phrase when he campaigned for Florida Republican candidate Ron DeSantis in Lakeland, Florida. Democratic Super American Bridge got an audio recording of Perdue's speech.
"Public policy is important. Leadership matters, "says Perdue. And that's why this election is so important to the cotton pickin in the state of Florida. I hope you will not do anything.
Perdue's department did not immediately respond to HuffPost's request for comment. A spokesman for DeSantis told Politico that they were "happy" to make Perdue's campaign for him and asked the political information site to contact Perdue directly to comment on his remarks.
Merrian-Webster defines "cotton picking" as another way of saying "damned", but this phrase evokes race and is related to the cotton plantations of the southern states where African slaves were forced to work.
David Bossie, a former campaign manager for Donald Trump, was temporarily suspended from his role as contributor to Fox News after using this phrase in June. Live, Bossie told Joel Payne, a black Democratic strategist, that he was "out of date."
Payne reprimanded Bossie's racist remark, saying to Bossie: "Some of my family members have picked cotton and I will not let you attack TV like that." Fox subsequently issued a statement calling Bossie's comments: and totally inappropriate. "
Perdue's remark on Saturday is not the only racist thing to surface during the rivalry between DeSantis, who is white, and Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, who is black.
DeSantis had to face a public outcry after saying that Florida should not "break the head", while talking about Fox News about the upcoming elections.
"The last thing we need to do is mess up that in try to adopt a socialist program with huge tax increases and put the state out of business, "DeSantis told the conservative news network.
The president of the Democratic Party of Florida, Terrie Rizzo, equated the choice of DeSantis words with "racist whistles".
In defense of DeSantis, campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said the GOP candidate was talking about voters joining Gillum's "socialist politics".
"It's absurd to characterize it," Lawson told HuffPost.
A few days after DeSantis's remark, the voters started receiving robo calls from a person claiming to be Gillum who spoke in an exaggerated dialect. The drums and sounds of the jungle play in the background during the call.
Blacks "made mud huts while whites lost a lot of time turning their houses into woods," he said. Automated calls were funded by a neo-Nazi website.
Gillum and DeSantis are in a tight race to become governor of Florida. According to polls, Gillum leads DeSantis by 2.6 points.
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