Former White House aide and current Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp tussled with CNN anchor Jim Sciutto over the recent feud between President Trump and four liberal Democratic congresswomen.
Trump has been accused of espousing racism for suggesting that Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts should go back to their home countries if they are unhappy with the United States, despite only Omar having been born outside of the U.S. The back-and-forth has gone on for more than a week, and the president has reiterated his position multiple times.
On Monday, Sciutto aired clips showing the president speaking negatively about the U.S. and attempted to get Schlapp to explain how his criticism of the country is different from the congresswomen’s.
Schlapp argued Trump’s “policies and where his vision has been for America is that of America first.”
She then launched into a mini monologue attack against the congresswomen, pointing out many of the same gripes with them that the president has expressed, including controversial comments that some have deemed anti-Semitic and calling detention centers concentration camps, among others.
Sciutto then read a tweet from Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt that reads, “He says Antisemitism is on the rise. Donald Trump using Israel to defend his blatant racism only hurts the Jewish community. He doesn’t speak for any of us. We call on all leaders across the political spectrum to condemn these racist, xenophobic tweets and using Jews as a shield.”
“There’s no better friend to Israel than the president of the United States,” Schlapp responded. “We stand with the prime minister, we stand with the Jewish people. I think what we have seen, where you have had Congresswoman Omar make anti-Semitic remarks and then you have the House of Representatives decide to basically lightly slap her hand, and not even include her in the resolution. Yet when it comes to Donald Trump, their focus and their hatred towards him, they break the rules in the House of Representatives to push past a resolution. That’s problematic.”
Schlapp was interviewed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, and she defended the president from accusations that he’s racist at the time.
