(Picture credit News Channel Nebraska)
RED CLOUD — Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn brought his 93-county tour to Red Cloud on Thursday evening two weeks after the Omaha World Herald released an audio clip of Osborn mocking “Billy Bob in f—king Red Cloud, Nebraska who lives next to the f—king Trump store.”
National and local Republicans widely condemned Osborn for the profanity-ridden comment, while some observers – including the notable democratic socialist streamer Hasan Piker – praised him.
Prior to Thursday evening, Osborn had appeared on CNN with Dana Bash and painted the comments as a poor representation of his platform, as well as explaining his intent in saying them. He maintained the apologetic tone before a room of around seventy in the Red Cloud Community Center gym.
“I don’t have mastery over the English language as if I went to Yale Law School, but I do regret those words, and for that I apologize to the people of Red Cloud – they should have never been said. I don’t feel that way,” he said.
Mixed Reaction From Crowd
Osborn made no mention of those who had castigated or praised him for his ‘Billy Bob’ comment, quickly moving to a few opening remarks about the war in Iran. He then yielded to questions from the audience, who alternatively pressed and defended him for the comments.
One woman asked why he chose to demean Red Cloud in particular for his caricature.
“There is no Trump store here, it’s actually in Arapahoe – so it was inaccurate from the beginning. But I said those words, again, because I talk to a lot of people who are frustrated… and so that comes from a place of I’m just as frustrated,” he said. “I should have chosen my words, definitely, better. I apologize for that.”
Another questioner appeared to caution the crowd against taking offense.
“I think all of us have the advantage that we don’t have someone following us around with a secret mic trying to get a recording so they can put on TV something out of context,” she said.
“You’re right, I have people following me everywhere I go, sticking cameras in my face, trying to agitate me to get me to say something,” Osborn responded. “They take snippets of what I say a lot of times, put $10 million behind it, take them all together, and turn them into a mountain.”
He did clarify that he was not saying that had happened in the case of his Red Cloud remarks.
“But a lot of what I say, they take snippets.”
Osborn Responds on Other Issues
Another attendee asked him his stance on the Second Amendment in light of reporting on his current and prior Senate campaigns, which the attendee noted included support for red flag laws, expanded background checks, bump stock bans, and an openness to 5-year mental health evaluations for assault-style weapons, as first reported by The Plains Sentinel.
“The majority of that isn’t true, being taken out of context. The one thing that was true is I said I would always defer to law enforcement when it comes to firearms,” he said.
He did add that he presently favors the “cool off” restriction in Maine, which imposes a mandatory 72-hour waiting period between purchasing a gun and taking possession of it.
“The cool off period makes sense to me. I mean, 60% of veteran suicides is done by handgun. It’s not about keeping guns from people, it’s about making sure that when somebody’s in an emotional state, they can’t just go buy a handgun and kill themselves in the parking lot, which happened to a friend of mine this last year.”
A landowner questioned him regarding property taxes, which Osborn responded were broadly a state issue, but on the topic, expressed his hope that those in Nebraska agriculture could see some relief in light of the Trump Administration rescheduling hemp.
“At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, Nebraska could be leading the charge,” he said. “The plant itself is drought-resistant, pest-resistant, pulls heavy metals and nitrogen out of the soils so our farmers can rotate it in as a cash crop, it doesn’t need to be subsidized… this is something in the future that I’m going to advocate for.”
“And sorry for those of you who like to smoke it, but this isn’t the kind you roll up and smoke and watch movies, this is the industrial kind. Nebraska should be first on this.”
A woman who identified herself as a local public school employee approached the microphone to ask about Osborn’s pitch to younger voters.
“We have seniors that will be 18 before the election, how can I go about telling them that you’re the right choice to make?”
Osborn pointed to his refusal to accept defense contractor and corporate PAC money in addition to money from AIPAC and AI companies.
“That is how we get corruption out of our politics, is we get that money out of politics” he said.
The forty-minute event closed with a question about how Osborn would attack monopolistic industrial giants. He committed to introducing legislation to reduce or eliminate the 45z tax credit for ethanol plants, which drew a few mutters from the audience. He also repeated his longstanding promise to push for FTC and DOJ investigations and prosecutions of meat packing companies like Tyson.
When no more audience members volunteered another question, he concluded the event with the same apology he had opened with.
“I do apologize again for my words… I need to be mindful of what I say and how I say it,” he said, praising Red Cloud and similar towns for their response to the previous day’s extreme weather.
“When a storm rolls through or a flood rolls through, everybody’s out there with a chainsaw helping each other… in Omaha, you don’t get much of that. Just people honking at each other stuck in traffic.”
— Lewis Thune is a College Fix writing fellow with The Plains Sentinel.
Oh, so now he insults Omaha! "n Omaha, you don’t get much of that. Just people honking at each other stuck in traffic.”