A group of minority female liberal freshman Democrats said President Trump’s “blatantly racist attack” on them is “the agenda of white nationalists” and a distraction from the mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and three colleagues said President Trump’s tweet calling on them to “go back” to where they came from is aimed at “dividing our country” on race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.
Omar held a last-minute press conference Monday with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, in response to Trump’s declaration that if they don’t like the United States, they should leave.
“I am not surprised when the president says four sitting members of Congress should go back to their countries when he has authorized raids without warrants against thousands of families in this country,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “He can’t look a child in the face and justify why this country is throwing them in cages, so instead he tells us I should go back to the great borough of the Bronx and make it better, and that’s what I’m here to do.”
The lawmakers condemned Trump’s agenda and called for his impeachment.
“I encourage the American people and all of us in this room and beyond not to take the bait,” Pressley said. “This is a disruptive distraction from the issues of care and concern and consequence of the American people that we were sent here with a decisive mandate from our constituents to work on.”
Tlaib called Trump’s comments “disgusting and bigoted” and urged Democratic leaders to impeach him.
“We remain focused on holding him accountable to the laws of this land and to the American people,” Tlaib said.
