U.S. senator: No ill intent behind ‘hanging’ remark
JACKSON, Miss. — A white Republican U.S. senator from Mississippi said during a debate with her African American Democratic opponent Tuesday night that she apologizes to people who were offended when she complimented a supporter by saying she would attend a “public hanging” if the supporter invited her.
Sen. Cindy HydeSmith’s remark was caught on video that was released last week. It has brought widespread criticism both inside and outside Mississippi, a state with a history of racially motivated lynchings.
“For anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statement,” HydeSmith said Tuesday during a televised debate with Democrat Mike Espy.
The apology was a new approach for Hyde-Smith, who repeatedly refused to answer questions about the hanging comment at a news conference Nov. 12, the day after the publisher of a liberal-leaning news site posted the video on Facebook and Twitter.
The clip shows HydeSmith praising a cattle rancher at a Nov. 2 campaign event in Tupelo by saying: “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” Shortly after the video’s release, she said in a statement that the expression was an “exaggerated expression of regard” and said it is “ridiculous” to read any negative connotation into it.
“There has never been anything, not one thing, in my background to ever indicate I had ill will toward anyone,” HydeSmith, a former state agriculture commissioner, said Tuesday night.
Espy responded during the debate: “No one’s twisted your comments because your comments were live, you know, it came out of your mouth. I don’t know what’s in your heart, but I know what came out of your mouth. It went viral in the first three minutes around the world. And so it’s caused our state harm. It’s given our state another black eye that we don’t need.”
Hyde-Smith is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress. Espy, a former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary, is seeking to become the state’s first African American senator since Reconstruction.
Senate races rarely gain national attention in Mississippi, a deeply conservative state. But this matchup — the last major race of the 2018 midterms — has drawn scrutiny after Hyde-Smith’s remarks.
President Trump is traveling to Mississippi for two Hyde-Smith rallies Monday on the eve of the election.