Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) declined to take accountability after ring camera footage of him appearing to rifle through a voter’s mailbox while on the campaign trail went viral online.
Speaking to MS Now journalist Alexander Tabet on Tuesday, Fine attempted to cast doubt of the legitimacy of the footage, in spite of the fact that his own office confirmed it was indeed him in the video.
“I knocked on 500 doors in the last few days. In the last week, there’s been videos of me with horns growing out of my head, videos of me dressed like a cheerleader, videos of me putting a swastika on my arm,” he told Tabet. “I don’t even know that it’s real. I certainly don’t remember doing that, and I don’t even know the video is real.”
The video, which first appeared on TMZ Tuesday, shows Fine approaching the front porch of an unknown Florida resident’s home and ringing the doorbell. When no one answers the door, Fine lifts the lid of an adjacent mailbox and flips through its contents.
According to TMZ, the clip’s timestamp indicated it was filmed Sunday. The outlet also notes that Fine’s office confirmed that the person who appears in the video ― which has been viewed more than 3.3 million times as of Wednesday afternoon ― is in fact him.
In his MS Now chat, however, Fine feigned ignorance.
“I don’t remember doing anything like that. I don’t know why I would have,” he explained. “But again, I didn’t, like, go to one person’s house. I knocked on the doors of 500 houses, so I don’t remember doing anything like that. Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not. I don’t know.”
When pressed by Tabet further, Fine held firm.
“I don’t remember even doing it, so I’m not gonna take accountability for something I don’t know that I actually did,” he said.
The late-breaking backlash to the video seemingly had minimal impact on Fine’s campaign. The first-term congressman, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, won the Republican primary in Florida’s 6th Congressional District Tuesday evening.
One of Fine’s primary opponents was Dan Bilzerian, a right-wing influencer and conspiracy theorist who said he wanted to “kill Israelis” and described his rival as a “fat Jew.”
Fine, meanwhile, has his own history of bigoted rhetoric, prompting Vox to this week deem the race between him and Bilzerian as “the worst primary in America.”
In February, he sparked outrage across the political spectrum when he suggested in a social media post that he’d choose dogs over Muslims. And in May of last year, he falsely accused Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is Muslim, of being a terrorist.
Speaking to HuffPost days later, Fine did not retract his comment on Tlaib.
“I mean, look at what she believe,” he said. “I believe if you support Muslim terror, you are a terrorist.”