State Representative Aaron Bernstine (R-PA 10), who represents a portion of northern Butler County, is responding to the controversial videos that surfaced earlier this week.
The videos were taken from Bernstine’s Snapchat account which has since been deleted. They show Bernstine encouraging his five-year-old son to smoke a cigar, telling him to “hit it harder” and “breathe in.”
Other videos show Bernstine asking his son what they are going to do on vacation in Nashville, to which the son responds using a vulgarity for female anatomy.
There are two other videos that were shared on the app, in which Bernstine asks an unidentified child to participate in a game that was used offensive language to describe female celebrities.
Bernstine said in response that it “was a private vacation with my son, his friends, and several of their parents. It was jokes that went too far, and for that I’m sorry.”
Bernstine however gave no indication that he would resign.
“Now, the party bosses of both sides are going to try and take advantage of the situation. They’ll continue to pound away on things in order to score political points,” Bernstine said.
“Over the next 26 days, I’m going to continue work hard to gain your trust and work hard on the issues that matter for the people of the 10th legislative district,” Bernstine added.
The response comes amid calls from both Democrats and Republicans for Bernstine’s resignation.
