Acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli dodged commenting on President Trump’s tweets suggesting prominent progressive freshmen congresswomen should “go back” to their home countries during interviews on CNN Sunday and Monday.
Cuccinelli appeared on CNN’s State of the Union hosted by Jake Tapper Sunday morning about an hour after the president’s tweets. He then was interviewed by Alisyn Camerota on New Day Monday morning. Both Tapper and Camerota asked him about the controversial tweets and both times he refused to directly address the question.
“‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe,” Trump tweeted in part. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Tapper introduced Cuccinelli and then immediately asked him about the tweets.
“I do have to ask you, who is the president talking about in this tweet when he says that — these individuals, ‘Democratic congresswoman progressives need to go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came,'” Tapper began. “Do you have any idea who he’s talking about here?”
“I don’t. I don’t,” Cuccinelli responded.
“Okay, because you know [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York, [Ayanna] Presley was born in Ohio, [Rashida] Tlaib was born in Michigan,” the host continued. “I understand you’re bound by the Hatch Act, you’re supposed to talk policy and not really politics, but you understand that you heard [Bill] de Blasio talking about how the president likes divide people on race and religion and nationality and these [Immigration Customs Enforcement] raids come and the president is talking about sending these Democratic congresswomen back to the countries they came from where three out of four members of the so called ‘Squad’ come from the United States.”
“He’s running for president. And you’re wrapping up his rhetoric for a presidential race in with what is ICE’s everyday job and that is enforcing the law Congress passed,” Cuccinelli pushed back.
Tapper then pivoted to discuss the nationwide raids that ICE conducted on Sunday.
Cuccinelli appeared on the network again Monday morning and again failed to address the comments.
Camerota began by reading Trump’s tweets and asked him what he thought.
“Well, I didn’t see that tweet, actually. I can hear what you’re reading, but I’ve spent the weekend reading litigation and regulatory materials related to asylum,” Cuccinelli responded. “I can see the president commenting on some of the splits in the Democratic caucus in the House, presumably. But beyond that, I’m staying focused on trying to fix our asylum system. We have a 300,000-plus case backlog and a crisis at the border.”
He proceeded to call the comments “political hand grenades,” but said it “certainly” wasn’t racist.
She asked Cuccinelli how he explained the comments to which he responded, “I don’t. You’re going to have to ask the president about that,” and later added that “I’m not commenting on the president’s tweets.”
Camerota later pointed out that he had in fact heard the tweet, when Tapper asked him about it the day before.
“So you have heard this tweet before and you have had 24 hours to process it,” Camerota noted.
“So what?” Cuccinelli answered. “I’m not in there doing the Twitter war. I’m working on fixing an asylum system and trying to make our immigration system legal and vetting illegals work correctly.”
