Donald Trump speaks with reporters at the White House, July 18, 2019


After five days of racist tweets and false statements about four progressive Democratic Congresswomen, Donald Trump disowns the crowd that followed his lead with chants of “Send Her Back!”.

Pursuing re-election in 2020 by portraying Democrats as “extremists” who hate America, Trump launched the assault on Sunday with tweets telling the Congresswomen — Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — to “go back…to your country”. He followed up with falsehoods that the quartet are anti-Semitic Al Qa’eda sympathizers, Communists, and “extremist Socialists”

Then he launched an attack on Omar at Wednesday’s North Carolina rally that prompted the crowd response. Trump stood back for almost 15 seconds, basking in the audience’s enthusiasm for his diatribe.

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However, at a White House ceremony for Special Olympians yesterday, Trump lied when asked why he did not stop the “Send Her Back” chant: “I think I did — I started speaking very quickly.”

He added, “I disagree with it, by the way….I felt a little bit badly about it. I did, I started speaking quickly….I was not happy with it.”

Then Trump disowned his supporters completely, “I didn’t say it. They did.”

Asked why the crowd chanted, Trump said, “You’ll have to ask them….You’re used to giving me too much credit.”

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Trump’s uncharacteristic retreat came after House Republican leaders and his daughter Ivanka told him that Tuesday night’s display did not boost his 2020 campaign but undermined it.

Republican members of the House told Vice President Mike Pence at breakfast, “We cannot be defined by this.” Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, a top official in the GOP’s public relations office who was at the Tuesday rally, summarized:

[This is] something that we want to address early….That does not need to be our campaign call, like we did the ‘Lock Her Up’ [against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] last time.

“People familiar with the message” said Vice President Mike Pence conveyed the legislators’ concerns to Trump.

Ivanka Trump spoke with her father on Thursday morning to drive home the point.

Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who initially tried to denounce the “extremist” Democratic Congresswomen, said yesterday, “Those chants have no place in our party or our country.”

Other GOP legislators echoed the statement while separating it from Trump personally. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota said, “There’s no place for that kind of talk….There’s not a racist bone in the president’s body.”

Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York City and is of Puerto Rican heritage. Tlaib, born in Detroit, is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. Omar, who with Tlaib are the first Muslim Congresswomen in US history, came to the US from war-torn Somalia at the age of 12. Pressley, born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago, is the first African-American Congresswoman from Massachusetts.

On Monday, responding to Trump’s “go back”, they set out their positions on education, health care, the environment, and economic justice and said, “We don’t leave the things that we love — and when we love this country, we propose the solutions to fix it.”

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Despite Trump’s retreat, some of his allies continued his assault. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said:

I don’t think it’s racist to say. I don’t think a Somali refugee embracing Trump would be asked to go back. If you’re racist, you want everybody to go back because they are black or Muslim. That’s not what this is about. What this is about to me is that these four congresswomen, in their own way, have been incredibly provocative.

The four Congresswomen are being given greater security, out of concern that Trump’s remarks might spur physical attacks on them. Omar said yesterday that her priority was not her own safety:

What I am scared for is the safety of people who share my identity.

When you have a President who clearly thinks someone like me should go back, the message that he is sending is not for me, it is for every single person who shares my identity.