NY senate candidate promises Harlem residents 'Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons' at campaign event

A gothamist.com story about New York Senate Candidate Jon Girodes A gothamist.com story about New York Senate Candidate Jon Girodes Photo: Gothamist.com Photo: Gothamist.com Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close NY senate candidate promises Harlem residents 'Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons' at campaign event 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

What initially started as an investigation into a New York state Senate candidate's involvement in a real estate scandal, later devolved into a "Is this real life?" discussion over his plan to host a campaign event serving "Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons" in East Harlem.

Reporter Sarah Wallace with WNBC in New York contacted Jon Girodes, a Republican candidate for New York's 30th District seat, for the real estate story. In an email reply back, Girodes invited Wallace to a community event, mentioning the food offerings.

"Ps I'm hosting an event in Harlem which will be in front of the state building in a few weeks," he wrote to Wallace. "We will [donate] Kool Aid, KFC and watermelons to the public on 125th street in Harlem. Please join us to help the community."

This all led to Gothamist.com to run a story with the headline, "Is this Republican NY Senate Candidate More Unhinged Than Trump?"

The food has well-known racist associations with it, as Gothamist pointed out, and NBC went to Harlem to interview residents about how they felt about the food. Pretty much everyone they talked to was ... Not. Pleased.

"It's racist," Harlem resident Tyrone Nero told the news station. "Whoever he is, I think he should go back in whatever hole he crawled in and have a great life."

When NBC gave Girodes a chance to pivot away from his original statement, he instead insisted on it. He told the news station, "What I think is anyone who gives free food to people is doing them a favor."

"Get a bunch of people who say it's offensive and let me go into their neighborhood and give it out for free and see if they take it," he added.

The day after the report aired, however, Girodes did back down on his comments. He even told Gothamist that he never wrote about the event (despite NBC providing the news site with the original email).

"I should say for the record that I grew up in Harlem, I'm Cuban and African-American. For the record we did grow up eating a lot of watermelon," he told Gothamist, defending the comments he said he never made.