Democratic congressional candidate Mike Derrick of Peru says a comment made referring to Republican incumbent Rep. Elise Stefanik at a campaign event in Potsdam last week was “inappropriate.”

But he is calling on Stefanik, R-Willsboro, to “take her own advice and repudiate her support for Donald Trump” on the same grounds.

During brief speeches before Derrick spoke, retired union leader Ernie LaBaff said, “We do not need a congresswoman like Elsie Stefanik, or Elsie the Cow, whatever you want to call her.”

"My campaign does not condone any language that disparages women,” said Derrick in a statement Tuesday.

“While this comment was not made by an official staffer of my campaign, I do object to it and agree that the comment was inappropriate," he said.

Stefanik’s campaign issued a statement on Monday saying LaBaff’s remark was “simply unacceptable and completely inappropriate. Equally unacceptable is the fact that Mike Derrick stood silently by, and failed to immediately repudiate the personal slur. This individual should be reprimanded and asked to resign from his leadership position, and Mike Derrick should immediately ensure he has no future association with his campaign."

"Mike came right over to me and said immediately I shouldn't have said that, and I understood that," said LaBaff, president emeritus of the Aluminum Brick and Glass Workers International Union, former St. Lawrence County Legislator and a vice-chairman of the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency.

"I joke a lot. That's me," he said.

"But what's so bad about it when she supports Trump. What about all the things he's said. That doesn't bother her?" LaBaff said.

"There's never room for name-calling in our political discourse, plain and simple,” Derrick said in Tuesday’s statement.

“I encourage Congresswoman Stefanik to take her own advice here and repudiate her support for Donald Trump and the sexist name-calling that permeates his campaign,” he said. “If she takes issue with this kind of language, how can she support a presidential candidate who has a consistent record of objectifying and belittling women, not to mention veterans and Gold Star families?"