Trump accuses 4 Democratic congresswomen of spewing ‘racist hatred’

President Donald Trump on Monday increased his attacks on four freshman Democratic congresswomen and warned the party about uniting “around the foul language & racist hatred spewed” from the four American women whom he recently told to “go back” to their own countries.

>> Eileen SullivanThe New York Times
Published : 15 July 2019, 01:34 PM
Updated : 15 July 2019, 01:36 PM

Fellow Republicans have been reluctant to publicly respond to Trump’s comments, widely seen as racist and directed at four liberal Democrats who have been at odds with the party leadership: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S Pressley of Massachusetts. Three of the four were born in the United States.

FILE -- Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), left, with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), speaks during a news conference outside the House of Representatives in Washington, June 12, 2019. President Donald Trump weighed in via Twitter on the friction between a group of four freshman Democratic congresswomen, including Omar, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on July 14 by suggesting that the congresswomen — none of whom are white — should “go back and help fix” the countries they came from. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The New York Times)

Instead of walking back his remarks, Trump accused the women themselves of using racist hatred and demanded that they issue their own apologies to him and “the people of Israel.”

“When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said,” he wrote. “So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!”

“If Democrats want to unite around the foul language & racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular & unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out,” he wrote in another tweet. “I can tell you that they have made Israel feel abandoned by the U.S.”

President Donald Trump speaks during an event at a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin in Milwaukee, July 12, 2019. Trump weighed in via Twitter on the friction between a group of four freshman Democratic congresswomen and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on July 14 by suggesting that the congresswomen — none of whom are white — should “go back and help fix” the countries they came from. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

Trump’s early morning Twitter assault also addressed tensions from earlier this year when Omar sent jolts through her own party when she criticised Israel and suggested that advocates for Israel were pushing for “allegiance to a foreign country.”

On Sunday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, responded to the president and suggested he was advocating white nationalism.

“When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again,” she said in a Twitter post.

© 2019 New York Times News Service