Former House Speaker John Boehner got visibly uncomfortable when he was repeatedly asked during a CNN interview if President Trump’s tweets about four minority congresswomen were racist.
CNN’s Ana Cabrera asked Boehner three times at the top of an interview Thursday in which the former Republican leader appeared alongside former Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley.
Boehner said he does not think there is “room in America” for the “send her back” chant that broke out during Trump’s rally in Greenville, North Carolina, which was aimed at Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, on Wednesday. The chant took place after Trump repeatedly criticized Omar, a liberal congresswoman from Minnesota. He also condemned the other members of “the squad,” which includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
But Cabrera insisted Boehner respond directly to Trump’s tweets last weekend which started the war of words, in which the president encouraged the freshmen liberal congresswomen of color to “go back” to their native countries if they were unhappy in the United States. Omar is the only one of the group to be born outside the United States, but she is an American citizen.
After Boehner said he has not been keeping up the news and would simply let other people make their own judgment about the tweets, Cabrera read them out loud. A flustered-looking Boehner began to twiddle his thumbs.
“He has a little different style than I have, let’s put it that way,” Boehner said after Cabrera’s third attempt, adding that he did not come to the interview to discuss Trump’s rhetoric.
Boehner and Crowley, who was defeated by Ocasio-Cortez last year in the New York primary, said they agreed to the interview to discuss their effort to save pensions for retirees.
