{"id":1538,"date":"2019-07-16T00:03:48","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T05:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.biz-america.com\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2019-07-16T00:05:48","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T05:05:48","slug":"lawmakers-blast-trumps-racist-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/?p=1538","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers blast Trump’s ‘racist’ attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

US president Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks against four \nminority US congresswomen on Monday and dismissed concerns that his \ncomments were racist, prompting outrage from Democrats, who moved to \ncondemn him in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the White House, Trump said people he described as critical of the United States should leave the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those remarks followed his Twitter messages on Sunday that said the \nfour left-wing lawmakers, known in Congress as “the squad,” should go \nback to “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four of the first-term House members are US citizens and all but one were born in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you’re not happy in the US, if you’re complaining all the time, \nvery simply: You can leave,” he said, drawing scattered applause from a \ncrowd of businesspeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if he was concerned that some viewed his remarks as racist and \nthat white supremacists found common cause with him, Trump said he was \nnot. “It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” Trump \nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president’s remarks were widely derided and some, though not many, of his fellow Republicans spoke out against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump did not identify the lawmakers by name in his Sunday tweets, \nbut he appeared to refer to representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of \nNew York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and \nRashida Tlaib of Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four have been critical of Trump, as well as of the current \nDemocratic leaders of the House, straining party unity in that chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a press conference on Capitol Hill, the four lawmakers said Trump \nwas trying to sow division and distract attention from what they \ncharacterized as failed policies on immigration, healthcare and \ntaxation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Weak minds and leaders challenge loyalty to our country in order to \navoid challenging and debating the policy,” Ocasio-Cortez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tlaib and Omar repeated their calls for Trump to be impeached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been criticised by members of \n“the squad,” said her party would introduce a resolution condemning \nTrump’s “xenophobic tweets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A draft of the resolution, seen by Reuters late on Monday, said the \nHouse “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that \nhave legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and \npeople of color …”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"US<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, told \nreporters the resolution could be on the House floor for debate as soon \nas Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a resolution could put Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress in\n an awkward position, forcing them either to vote against their party’s \nleader, who has strong support among conservatives, or effectively to \ndefend his statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump’s attacks elevated the profiles of the four progressive \nDemocrats, who have helped push the party’s agenda to the left, causing \nconcern among Democratic moderates who are eager to hold onto their \nseats in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A FEW REPUBLICANS SPEAK OUT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has a history of what critics consider race-baiting. He led a \nmovement that falsely claimed former President Barack Obama was not born\n in the United States, and he said after a deadly, white supremacist-led\n rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that “both sides” were to blame for\n violence there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in\n chat rooms, or it’s happening on national TV, and now it’s reached the \nWhite House garden,” Omar said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although most Republicans stayed silent on Trump’s divisive rhetoric, several began expressing concern late on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas Representative Will Hurd, the only African-American Republican in the House, called the attacks “racist” on CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Scott, the Senate’s only black Republican, called them “racially offensive” on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others did not go that far. Senator Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 \npresidential nominee, and Senator Marco Rubio, who ran in 2016, both \ncondemned the remarks but declined to characterize them as racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said the four lawmakers \nbelonged in the United States, but did not criticize Trump. “The \npresident is not a racist,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell did not comment on the controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump regularly used racially charged language during his campaign \nand continued in his presidency. His latest remarks came as some of his \nefforts to deal with immigration – a major issue for his conservative \nbase – have faltered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump promised as a candidate to build a wall along the US-Mexico \nborder and that Mexico would pay for it. As president, very little has \nhappened on wall construction and Mexico has resolutely refused to pay \nfor a wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘RACISM, DIVISION’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Sunday tweets, Trump said of the four congresswomen, “Why \ndon’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested \nplaces from which they came … Then come back and show us how … it is\n done.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley and Tlaib were born in the United States while Omar, a Somali refugee, arrived in 1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime Trump golf partner and \nadviser, called the four congresswomen “communist” and “anti-Semitic” on\n Fox News on Monday, but he also called on Trump to stop making such \npersonal attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Aim higher … Take on their policies. The bottom line here is this \nis a diverse country,” he said, adding that he had spoken to Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks against four minority US congresswomen on Monday and dismissed concerns that his comments were racist, prompting outrage from Democrats, who moved to condemn him in the House of Representatives. Speaking at the White House, Trump said people he described as critical of the United States should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biz.golamfaruque.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}