Upstream's irrelevant to a maintainer. Downstream? Maintainers typically know best, that's why the user chose that distro. I bailed on Debian when they decided to go systemd. That's Democracy.
To be fair, when asked he had to say that. Many people think it's obviously about Jews, seeing as how the 'aliens' are in control mainly of banks and the media.
Had he answered any other way, his career would have been over and he might have been killed.