Here Are Paul LePage's Greatest Hits

Soon after taking office in 2011, LePage told the civil rights group the NAACP to "kiss my butt" after they were upset the governor wasn't going to attend their Martin Luther King Birthday events in the state.

“My son happens to be black, so they can do whatever they’d like about it,” he told a reporter for WGME-TV. “The fact of the matter is there’s only so many hours in a day, so many hours in a week, and so much that you can do.”

In response to a question about whether he had a history of slighting the organization, LePage responded, "Tell them to kiss my butt. ... If they want to play the race card, come to dinner; my son will talk to them.”

In 2013, LePage went after Assistant Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson (D), saying he had a "black heart" and "no brains." The governor was upset at the legislator for saying he wasn't willing to negotiate with Democrats on the budget.

"Sen. Jackson claims to be for the people, but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline," LePage said.

When a reporter suggested his comment would offend people, LePage replied, "Good. It ought to, because I’ve been taking it for two years."

In 2011, early in his tenure as governor, LePage quietly ordered the Maine Department of Labor to remove a mural depicting the state’s labor history. He argued that it was biased against businesses and employers.

“Were the bosses in the mural?" he said at the time. "Were the employers in the mural? History is about two sides ... I think it’s inappropriate for [the mural] to be in the Department of Labor when everyone comes in, employers and employees, and they’re confronted by one side of the question.”

LePage faced intense backlash for his actions and subsequent comments, including from members of his own party.

LePage sent law enforcement to enforce a quarantine at the home of Kaci Hickox in 2014. The nurse had returned home to Maine from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. There was no evidence that Hickox had contracted the Ebola virus, and ultimately, she never did. But that didn't stop the governor from forcing her into quarantine.

"I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me even though I am in perfectly good health," Hickox said at the time.

A state judge eventually sided with Hickox and said she was free to leave her property.

In January, LePage claimed that out-of-state drug dealers were coming to Maine and impregnating white women before they leave.

“Now the traffickers ... These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty, these types of guys. They come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, and they go back home,” LePage said. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue that we’ve got to deal with down the road. We’re going to make them very severe penalties.”

The comments ignited intense backlash. LePage initially said he wasn't talking about race, but he later admitted he was.

In August, LePage defended himself by saying he keeps a book of drug arrests in Maine that backed him up.

"I will tell you that 90-plus percent of those pictures in my book ― and it’s a three-ringed binder ― are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn," he said.

In 2012, LePage blasted Obamacare and said the IRS is the "new Gestapo" because it would be imposing tax penalties on people who don't have health care.

"We the people have been told there is no choice,” he said. “You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo -- the IRS.”

A few days later, LePage doubled down.

"What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad -- yet," he said.

In February, LePage said he believed asylum-seekers were the “biggest problem” in the state because of the diseases they may be bringing in.

“What happens is you get hepatitis C, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, the ‘ziki fly,’ all these other foreign type of diseases that find a way to our land,” LePage said during a town hall meeting.

There is no such thing as the “ziki fly.” The disease LePage was presumably referencing was the Zika virus, which is transmitted by a certain type of mosquito and has rapidly spread through Latin America. Zika has been linked to a condition called microcephaly, which results in newborns having an abnormally small head and incomplete brain development. El Salvador has urged women not to get pregnant until 2018 as a precaution. The Zika virus is not currently found in Maine.

In January, LePage said he thought drug traffickers should be subject to death by guillotine.

“What I think we ought to do is bring the guillotine back. We should have public executions,” LePage said in an interview with the radio station WVOM.

The last time France executed someone by guillotine was in 1977. The country abolished the death penalty in 1981. The United States has never used this method of execution.

LePage has suggested that the state should loosen child labor laws, saying a hard day's work never hurt anyone.

“I went to work at 11 years old,” he said in 2011. “I became governor. It’s not a big deal. Work doesn’t hurt anybody.”

At the time, the legislature was considering measures to pay students a sub-minimum wage and extend the hours that students could work during the school week.

LePage, a supporter of Donald Trump, called Gold Star father Khizr Khan a "con artist" for speaking out about the GOP presidential nominee during the Democratic convention.

“Then there’s the almighty, powerful ones like Mr. Khan — which is a con artist himself ― and he uses the death of his son, who’s an American soldier, which we respect and honor, and he uses that to go after Trump, which I found very distasteful,” he said.

Khan’s son, Army Capt. Humayun S.M. Khan, was killed in 2004 in Iraq while saving the lives of his fellow soldiers from a bomb blast.

LePage doesn't like Maine's newspapers. In fact, he has said they are his greatest fear.

In 2013, while sitting in a fighter jet simulator, LePage said he'd like to "find the Portland Press Herald building and blow it up."

While running for governor in 2010, LePage said he'd have a message for President Barack Obama if elected: "Go to hell."

“We came from behind because we have a message. We have a message that says: One, we've had enough of the federal government. We've had enough. Two, we've had enough of the state government. And No. 3, government should be working for the people, not the people working for the government,” LePage said. “And as your governor, you're gonna be seeing a lot of me on the front page saying ‘Gov. LePage tells Obama to go to hell.’”

In January, LePage said he wanted state residents to start shooting drug dealers on sight in order to help alleviate Maine’s heroin crisis.

“Everybody in Maine, we have constitutional carry,” the governor said. “Load up and get rid of the drug dealers.”