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'If I hurt anybody's feelings': Cindy Hyde-Smith won't say why 'public hanging' remark offended black people
November 25, 2018 2:15PM ET
Cindy Hyde-Smith speaks to NBC (screen grab)
Mississippi Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) refused over the weekend to explain why her remark about public hangings was offensive to African-Americans.
During a campaign stop on Saturday, NBC's Vaughn Hilyard caught up with Hyde-Smith and asked her to articulate why she felt the need to apologize after telling a supporter that she would attend a "public hanging" if he invited her.
"[People] were questioning what you were apologizing for," Hilyard noted. "Could you clarify and articulate what it was you were apologizing for?"
"If I hurt anybody's feelings!" Hyde-Smith replied. "You know, we're just staying on the issues that are on people's minds. That is lower taxes, less regulation -- you know, Second Amendment. All of those things."
"So, you know, just anytime I've said anything that somebody got offended, I want to apologize," she added.
"Could you acknowledge what offended people?" the NBC reporter pressed.
"You would have to ask [them]," Smith insisted. "I just apologized for anything I could have possibly said."
Watch the video below.