You Know It’s Bad When Maine Gov. Paul LePage Is Telling Trump To Cool It

Gov. Paul LePage (R) said Thursday that he told Donald Trump that he needs to be more disciplined in order to win the presidency — or else the United States will wind up as a banana republic under Hillary Clinton.

“I told him one word: discipline,” LePage said on the Howie Carr Show, according to a clip highlighted by Buzzfeed News. “He said, ‘what do you mean?’ I said, ‘From here on out, everybody’s gonna wanna try to trip you so you gotta have discipline. He said, ‘oh, I get it. I get it.’”

In response, Carr told LePage, “He said, ‘what do you mean?’ I mean, that’s not a good sign.”

“You know what I mean, when I said ‘discipline, discipline,’ and he says, ‘what do you mean?’ I said, ‘everybody’s gonna come after you.’ And he said, ‘oh, oh, I see, I get it.’ And so, yeah, we had a good conversation,” LePage replied. “He gets it, but he needs to get — he needs to do it.”

When asked if he think Trump is capable of exercising discipline, LePage said that Trump needs to be “focused.”

“I told him, this election’s bigger than you. This election’s about the United States,” he added.

He then suggested that if Hillary Clinton wins the election, the U.S. will become a banana republic.

“I told him if you don’t win, if you don’t win, we’re gonna have to take the stars off the flag and put bananas on,” LePage said.

LePage himself has a history of making controversial and vulgar remarks. Most recently, he made racially charged comments in February lamenting that drug dealers from New York come to Maine and “impregnate a young, white girl.”

But as Trump has relentlessly attacked a Gold Star family and declined to endorse Republican leaders in their primaries, Trump’s surrogates have been increasingly critical and worried. Former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich (R-GA) said this week that Trump has been “very self-destructive.”