A Staten Island political consultant running for borough president on Monday offered an apology — and defense — for a garbled blast at COVID-19 lockdowns and her use of “Heil Hitler” in her demand on the Sheriff’s Department to push back on the public health restrictions.
Staten Island Republican Leticia Remauro told the Daily News on Monday that “I apologize profusely that the words I used in trying to create an analogy were offensive.”
In a short video clip taken at a massive Dec. 2 protest on Staten Island over the shuttering of Mac’s Public House, Remauro, wearing an American flag mask, rails at the closure of the popular pub. Remauro, who has served as campaign manager for Staten Island Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, posted a longer version on her Facebook page, but then took it down.
“Everything is very heated,” she said. “I do not want people to argue on my page.”
She explained she wanted to make the analogy that the Sheriff’s Department is being used to close small businesses on the orders of Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio.
“We’re with the small business community, with Staten Island to stand up for our right — the right to pay taxes so that we can pay the salaries of these good men and women,” Remauro says in the video as sheriff’s deputies can be seen in the background blocking entry to the bar.
“They are just doing their job. But, not for nothing, sometimes you got to say, `Heil Hitler! — not a good idea to send me here!'”
Remauro told The News she “actually meant to say ‘mein Führer, it’s not a good idea to send me here,'” a dig at the state leaders as “fascist.”
“I absolutely regret the choice of words,” she said Monday, saying they came “in the heat of the moment.”
“My very unfortunate analogy was … overdramatic and wrong,” she said.
“I apologize profusely that the word I used in trying to create an analogy are offensive,” she said. “But when you think about in Nazi Germany, in Cuba, with Mussolini it starts the same way. They come for your business, your religion, your property and then for you.”
“I will never apologize for supporting small businesses,” she added.
Remauro said her “tongue-tied” word salad was an attempt to say state and city officials are “acting as a fascist, in the same way Hitler took away people’s businesses.”
“So sometimes the sheriffs have to say, ‘it’s not a good idea to bring me here,'” she said.
“One after the another our rights are being taken away,” she argued. “We have a situation here where we are having elected officials make a decision in a vacuum … If you close restaurants and not let them reopen, there’s a trickle down effect.”
Remauro, who worked in the Republican administrations of Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki, said she’s proud of her political work with communities of all faiths and colors.
“We understand the Holocaust and what and how it happened,” she said. “My grandson is half-Jewish … I studied Judaism when I was younger. I’ve worked with the Jewish community.”
“I know people are beyond frustrated,” she said. “My very unfortunate analogy was one that struck a chord.”
