Honest mistake: Johnson.
AB Wire
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who is running for re-election has apologized for terming South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as an ‘Immigrantâ€.
Johnson said Friday he made an “honest mistake” when he erroneously called Haley an “immigrant” during a radio interview.
“I just misspoke,” Johnson said, reported the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel.
During a Wednesday interview with WLS radio in Chicago, Johnson praised Haley’s response to President Barack Obama’s state of the union address.
When asked by the program host if Haley might receive some angry tweets from presidential candidate Donald Trump, Johnson said, “Let’s face it: No two people agree on everything. And Governor Haley is an immigrant. She has powerful stories of being an immigrant and experiencing discrimination herself. And so she’s obviously gonna react different to somebody who’s never experienced that. I tend to align myself more with Governor Haley’s comments on the issue.”
Haley was born in South Carolina. Her parents are immigrants from India. Johnson’s comments were first reported by BuzzFeed.
Johnson is running for re-election in a rematch race against former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold. The first time they faced each other in 2010, Johnson announced his candidacy around eight months before the general election. The current contest has already been underway for months.
Haley continues to get mixed reactions to her GOP response to Obama’s State of the Union speech, but comments like the one made by Johnson reflect the poor understanding that the Republicans have of their own elected minority community members, a scarcity in their ranks anyway.