President Donald Trump on Sunday assailed a group of Democratic congresswomen of color as foreign-born troublemakers who should go back to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came,” ignoring the fact that the women are American citizens and all but one was born in the U.S.
Trump’s tweets drew sharp rebukes from Democrats, who derided his remarks as racist. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the president wants to “make America white again.” Meantime Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a Trump critic who recently took steps to leave his party, called the remarks “racist and disgusting.”
Trump was almost certainly referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and her allies in what’s become known as “the squad.” The others are Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Only Omar, from Somalia, is foreign-born.
Ocasio-Cortez swiftly denounced his remarks. “Mr. President, the country I ’come from, & the country we all swear to, is the United States,” she tweeted.
With his remarks, Trump again inserted himself into a rift between Pelosi and the liberal congresswomen, after offering an unsolicited defense of the Democratic speaker days earlier. Pelosi has been seeking to minimize Ocasio-Cortez’s influence in recent days, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to accuse Pelosi of trying to marginalize women of color. “She is not a racist,” Trump said Friday.
On Sunday, Trump’s tone changed.
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” he said in tweets. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
He added: “These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
The attacks may have been meant to further the divides within the Democrat caucus, strained over internal debates on liberal policies and on whether to proceed with impeachment proceedings against Trump. Instead, Democrats as one voice denounced the comments, which evoked the old racist trope of telling a black person to go back to Africa.
“Unfortunately there is an American tradition of telling people to go back where they came from,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democratic presidential contender, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” ″It’s a very bad tradition that we need to weed out of our nation because we are a nation of immigrants, that is who we are by our nature for hundreds of years. But you don’t expect to hear it from the president.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, was born in the Bronx, New York, and raised in suburban Westchester County.
Pressley, the first black woman elected to the House from Massachusetts, was born in Cincinnati.
Omar, the first Somali native elected to Congress and one of its first Muslim women, was born in Somalia but spent much of her childhood in a Kenyan refugee camp as civil war tore apart her home country. She immigrated to the United States at age 12, teaching herself English by watching American TV and eventually settling with her family in Minneapolis.
Tlaib was born in Detroit.
(AP)
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12 Responses
She will never leave voluntary. This filthy piece of garbage Omar should be deported back to Somalia.
That’s not at all what he said; your headline is false.
He told the women that if it’s so bad here, go back to the countries they left, make them better, then come back and tell us how you did it.
That’s totally different. He basically told them to put their money where their mouths are by fixing their original countries. It’s actually genius cuz these losers would rather rag on us than return to their disgusting countries.
It’s not about where they were born that’s a technicality. It’s about where they’re really from. This is how the fake news jumps on his words over technicalities. So trump made a point and it was a good one that these progressives are from other countries that are a lot worse off than we are and have plenty of work for them to do over there. And they should stop telling all of us how to run this country. And the media says o they were all born here. Cmon. Fake news at its best
To MIG: You know nothing about the history of Jews in America. My ancestors came here in the 1880’s, and if the anti-Semites had the same notions as Trump has about Latinos, my ancestors would have been sent back to Europe, and you would be wherever your ancestors were before you were born, assuming we weren’t all killed in the Holocaust.
1. Misleading headline…these are the far-left progressives, not “Liberal Dem Women.” 2. Calling the subject of Trump’s tweets “Women of color” is as absurd as AOC’s accusing Pelosi of singling out “Women of Color”-! 3. As mentioned, Trump actually told them to go back to their countries, that have severe problems, and then come back here and show us how they did it (rather than just blowing hot-air condemnations of the USA). I know YWN likes to forward us Associated Press articles because the AP is supposed to be relatively ‘neutral’ in the left wing – right wing spectrum. This is a prime example of how this is a total fallacy–the AP (and Reuters) is severely left-biased…this article is a serious of selectively edited mis-quoted “quotes”… in order to further the Trump-is-Racist narrative (even throwing in the “Mexicans are rapists” misquote that started the whole fictional narrative…he never said that, people. He said that amidst the hundreds of thousands of undocumented illegal immigrants, we have among them hardcore criminals that are therefore entering undetected. Which they are!)
It’s truly interesting hearing the rationalization for the presidents racist comments. The fact that he didn’t know that the majority of women he referenced were US citizens is telling. One of the great things about the US is that we are permitted to have different opinions. Frankly I’m glad he came out with his racist comments, there is no mistaking what he meant. And feh to the op who said to deport rep. Omar. She is a citizen, and has done nothing besides speak her mind. Regardless how you feel about her opinions she has a right to them, and because you disagree with them isn’t grounds for deportation of a US citizen.
First of all, this Menival Justin Amash who was born in 1980 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of a Palestinian Christian father and a Syrian Christian mother is no longer a Republican.
Second: The President is 100% Correct!! Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. If you don’t like this country, go back to the backwards country where you and/or your family came from, Ingrates!
This moronic idiot, only one of these women was born outside the United States. If he’s including all of them, that proves he’s a pure racist. He can go back to Germany or Scotland.
huju, your hysterical Trump-hating mod mentality totally destroying your sanity. If America does not stop ILLEGAL invasion to this country, especially Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying Anti-American filth like Ilhan Omar you and your grandchildren (if you have any) should look fro a new country to move to. Take a look what happens to Jews in Western Europe.
“congresswomen of color”
The second I saw the first line was a re-print of the official Democrat Party talking points, I knew this was an AP article, the same organization running hit pieces against Jewish groups. So let’s define what a “woman of color” means in their own worlds. Sarsour says that at the moment she puts on a headwrap, she *becomes* a woman of color. After Sarsour, this ultra-radical group including Talib have been pushing this nutso talking point.
The United States statistically and categorically do not consider these women to be “of color”. Except for one, and that leads to another old and tired debate the LA Times had over Obama in 2008.
“To MIG: You know nothing about the history of Jews in America.”
Neither do you. During and after the 2nd WW many Jews were turned away and were killed by German Torpedoes. My parents ended up in Canada because they weren’t allowed into the USA.
To ohreally: Trump said Mexicans are rapists. He also said that he assumed some of them are good people. If he said the same thing about Jews, you would not consider his comments so reasonable.