Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono painted President Trump’s base as a group of “white supremacists” while discussing racism and division in the United States.
Hirono, a Democrat, told MSNBC on Monday that she believes Trump is carrying out policies she has deemed racist because his base is “very anti-immigrant” and racist. She claimed his policies are designed to appease the “white supremacists” that got him elected.
“We now have three crises that we’re having to deal with, and it’s a pandemic, we have an economic crisis, we have police brutality and systemic racism crisis. And so what’s happening is that really covering for the president and his failures is the operating principle for his enablers. … We should be dealing with the pandemic, with the opening of schools.” Hirono said.
“You just did a perfect coverage on the concerns that everyone has about schools reopening. We should be dealing with the economic crisis. And we should be dealing with the racism that is in our country, to which the president speaks to because he has a base of supporters who are very anti-immigrant and white supremacists. That’s a lot of his base, and that’s who he speaks to, so the divisiveness continues,” she continued.
Hirono’s comments outraged many Republicans. Elizabeth Herrington, the national spokeswoman for the Republican Party, compared the remarks to the comments of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when she called Trump’s base a “basket of deplorables.”
“Democrat senator just called 63 million Americans and counting ‘white supremacists.’ So disgusting. Smearing us as ‘irredeemable and deplorable’ just wasn’t despicable enough,” Herrington tweeted.
Democrat senator just called 63 million Americans and counting “white supremacists”
So disgusting.
Smearing us as “irredeemable and deplorable” just wasn’t despicable enoughpic.twitter.com/LP4XwpQxMT
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) July 13, 2020
The U.S. has been experiencing nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis.
Hirono, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she does not want Congress to prioritize hearing testimony from former special counsel Robert Mueller following Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone because of the pressing issues of racism and the pandemic in the country. Hirono argued that Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee for president, will address the division in the U.S.
“[Trump] only cares about himself, unlike another candidate that I know, Joe Biden,” she said.
