GOP state Senator ‘tells Native candidate to go back to where you came from’ and stormed out of Idaho event

A Republican State Senator reportedly told a Native American candidate, “Go back to where you came from,” in a heated exchange before storming out of an Idaho forum.

Trish Carter-Goodheart,a Democratic candidate for the House District 6 seat and member of the Nez Perce Tribe, said she was “met with hateful, racist remarks” from State Senator Dan Foreman at the bipartisan forum in the north-Idaho town of Kendrick on Monday night.

Tensions rose when a question was asked about a state bill addressing discrimination, and candidates were given two minutes to answer. When Carter-Goodheart responded, she pushed back on comments made earlier that suggested discrimination is not a major issue in the state.

“I calmly pointed out that just because someone hasn’t personally experienced discrimination doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” Carter-Goodheart explained in a statement posted on Facebook. “That’s when Sen. Foreman lost all control,” she said. “His words to me: ‘I’m so sick and tired of this liberal b*******! Why don’t you go back to where you came from?!’”

In a follow-up statement on Friday, Carter-Goodheart said she was “not prepared” to have conversations about racism with her two young children, aged eight and five, as a result of the altercation. “My children are not used to seeing or hearing an adult man scream with such hate, and my children were scared, and of course, now they have many questions,” she added.

Foreman vehemently denies that he made the racist remark and said the incident was a “quintessential display of race-baiting.”

“I made no, repeat no, racial slur or statement of any nature,” he said in a statement on Facebook. “The accusation made is patently false.” The Independent has contacted the Senator for