Florida’s Democratic nominee for governor Andrew Gillum compared his GOP opponent Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump to pigs for the second time in one week after complaining about name-calling during the campaign.
“I have not called the president a racist, but there are racists in his sympathizers who believe that he may be, which is why they go to his aide, which is why he has provided them cover,” Gillum said on CNN’s “New Day” Thursday. “I believe that [Trump’s] cover has led to much of the degradation in our political discourse. I think the same is true for Mr. DeSantis, who has accepted money from folks who called the president [Barack Obama] a Muslim N-*-*-*-*-R.”
“They want me to get into name-calling,” he continued. “But as I will rely on some of the advice from my grandmother, she used to say, ‘never, ever wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.’ I can’t think of no one better who wants to wrestle in the mud than the president and Mr. DeSantis.”
This isn’t the first time Gillum has used that analogy to describe his opponents. He told the same story while evoking Trump and DeSantis during a Monday interview with “The Daily Show’s” Trevor Noah. (RELATED: Andrew Gillum Compares Trump And DeSantis To Pigs On ‘The Daily Show’)
Host John Berman switched gears and also asked Gillum about corruption allegations made against him during his time as Tallahassee’s mayor. Berman cited a transcript of a talk Gillum had with the Tallahassee Democrat.
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“You told the Democrat ‘you won’t find me making that kind of mistake again.’ What mistake are you talking about? What mistakes did you make there?” Berman asked.
“I think, as I shared with the Democrat last night, I’ve been elected since I was 23 years old. I grew up in many ways in this space, and I kind of entered politics and still feel pretty idealistic about the change-making process. The mistake I was referring to is not really assigning negative motives to anybody,” Gillum replied.
Gillum claimed he has never compromised his values or broken the law and said he has been fully transparent with voters.
“I want to be clear about this. I have never in any way compromised my values, my morals or the law. I’ve been an elected official for 15 years and I’ve been elected repeatedly by doing right, not by doing wrong,” he said.
“The people in my community know me and they trust me. I made it through a Democratic process in the primary election and … voters got to know me and they trust me. And the same is true, which is why we’re going to win this race for governor, is because I have been forthright and honest and transparent with the people of my state all along and I believe that they will trust me to lead this state. And I believe that’s why we’re going to win on Nov. 6.”
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