AUGUSTA — Maine’s Republican governor is lashing out at media reports he planned to leave the state during the government shutdown. And his comments suggest his feud with the press has reached the point where he makes up stories to mislead reporters.
Gov. Paul LePage criticized the news media Thursday on WGAN-AM for reporting that he planned to leave the state.
During the shutdown, two Republican senators — Senate President Michael Thibodeau and Sen. Roger Katz told reporters that LePage said he was going to leave on vacation. In fact, the senators said, LePage called them to his office to tell them.
The Bangor Daily News published the voicemail recording of LePage telling Katz he was leaving for 10 days.
“I’m heading out of town for about 10 days and I’d like to speak with you before I leave,” said LePage. “So could you give me a call, please?”
LePage’s communication office denied that he planned to go on vacation and called the reports “fake news,” contradicting the message their boss left with the senators.
LePage later told local TV that he meant his “pen” was taking a vacation from signing any bill that increased taxes for Maine hotels.
LePage told WGAN that “I just love to sit in my office and make up ways so they’ll write these stupid stories because they are just so stupid, it’s awful.”
He also characterized the Maine media as “vile,” ”inaccurate” and “useless.” He says “the sooner the print press goes away, the better society will be.”
In the radio interview, LePage reiterated his disdain for the media, in particular newspapers, saying “the sooner the print press goes away, the better society will be.”
His office didn’t immediately respond Thursday to further questions about the governor’s comments.
Katz said the governor was out of line.
“The governor’s suggestion that society would be better off without a free press ought to scare the hell out of anyone even vaguely familiar with history,” he said.
LePage’s contempt of newspapers is well documented. He previously declared that he doesn’t read newspapers and once joked about blowing up a newspaper building.
In April, he vetoed a bill requiring legal notices to be published in newspapers, saying the bill props up a “dying, antiquated industry.”
Paul LePage
Gov. Paul LePage
Maine Gov. Paul LePage pauses during a meeting to discuss the state’s efforts to fight the opioid epidemic, Wednesday, May 10, 2017, at the State House in Augusta, Maine.
AP
Maine Gov. Paul LePage pauses during a meeting to discuss the state’s efforts to fight the opioid epidemic, Wednesday, May 10, 2017, at the State House in Augusta.
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