Trump and Democrats clash over President’s “racist” tweets

Washington, July 16 (PTI): A livid Democratic Party has introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives, condemning the “racist” tweets of President Donald Trump against four non-white women lawmakers from the Opposition party.

Trump sparked a furore on Sunday when he said the women lawmakers “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and they should go home.

Though Trump did not explicitly name Democrat Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley in his initial Twitter tirade on Sunday, the context made a clear link to the four Democrat women, who are known as The Squad.

Three of the women were born in the US and one, Omar, was born in Somalia but came to the US as a child.

The Democratic Party introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning the alleged racist tweets. The resolution by Congressman Tom Malinowski could be voted on as early as Tuesday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday said that Republican lawmakers “must join” Democrats in “condemning the President’s xenophobic tweets” and urged Democrats to support a resolution put forward by House Democratic lawmakers.

“The House cannot allow the President’s characterisation of immigrants to our country to stand. Our Republican colleagues must join us in condemning the President’s xenophobic tweets,” Pelosi wrote in a Dear Colleague letter to House Democrats.

But Trump, a Republican, was in no mood to relent.

“The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four “progressives,” but now they are forced to embrace them. That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for the Democrats” Trump said as he unleashed a series of tweets against four Democratic Congresswomen.

The four women lawmakers held a news conference at the Capitol on Monday to denounce a tweet by the president in which he apparently suggested that they leave the country.

“This is a president who has overseen the most corrupt administration in our history,” Omar said.

“To distract from that, he’s launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States House of Representatives, all of whom are women of colour,” she said.

“This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it’s happening on national TV. And now it’s reached the White House garden,” she said.

“This is simply a disruption and a distraction from the callous chaos and corrupt culture of this administration, all the way down,” Pressley said.

Both Omar and Tlaib repeated their calls for Trump to be impeached.

Trump had in a tweet, which was widely considered as against the four Democratic progressive lawmakers, said they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” before speaking out about how the United States government should be run.

“He would love nothing more than to divide our country based on race, religion, gender, orientation or immigration status because this is the only way he knows how to prevent the solidarity of us working together across all of our differences,” Omar said.

Trump also said these progressive Democrats “came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe.” His tweets were considered by the Democrats as “racist.”

On Monday Trump again defended his controversial tweets.

“If you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave,” he told a heated news conference outside the White House.

As the women spoke to reporters on Monday evening, he tweeted again.

“If you are not happy here, you can leave! It is your choice, and your choice alone. This is about love for America,” he wrote.