Three politicians from New Jersey have apologized after they used and defended the phrase “Jew ’em down” in connection to a legal settlement that the state’s capital city paid out, reports said.

The saga kicked off when a recording of Trenton City Council President Kathy McBride uttering the anti-Semitic phrase in a Sept. 5 closed-door council hearing was leaked to local newspaper the Trentonian.

McBride was speaking about a settlement the city paid to a woman who injured herself on a city sidewalk when she used the slur, according to the report.

“I’m sad for her that they were able to wait her out and Jew her down for $22,000 with pins in her knee that can never, ever be repaired,” McBride said.

Two of her fellow council members, Robin Vaughn and George Muschal, initially defended the language before apologizing for doing so, NBC Philadelphia reported.

“You know, it’s like a car dealer. They wanted $5,000, you Jew ’em down to $4,000,” Muschal told the New Jersey Globe in an interview. “It’s nothing vicious. The expression has been said millions of times.”

Vaughn added to the Trentonian that she believed the phrase was not “anti-anything or indicative of hating Jewish people.”

By Wednesday of this week, all three politicians had apologized for using the trope.

“First and foremost, I am sincerely sorry. My comments were wrong. Never was it my intention to hurt, disrespect or demean anyone when I described a racial slur or its usage, as a verb,” Vaughn said in a statement.