{"id":7689,"date":"2019-07-15T05:05:05","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T12:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=7689"},"modified":"2019-07-15T05:05:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T12:05:05","slug":"trump-tells-freshman-congresswomen-to-go-back-to-the-countries-they-came-from-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=7689","title":{"rendered":"“Trump Tells Freshman Congresswomen to \u2018Go Back\u2019 to the Countries They Came From”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Katie Rogers<\/span> and Nicholas Fandos, July 14, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump said on Sunday that a group of four minority congresswomen feuding with Speaker Nancy Pelosi should \u201cgo back\u201d to the countries they came from rather than \u201cloudly and viciously telling the people of the United States\u201d how to run the government.<\/p>\n

Wrapped inside that insult, which was widely established as a racist trope, was a factually inaccurate claim: Only one of the lawmakers was born outside the country.<\/p>\n

Even though Mr. Trump has repeatedly refused to back down from stoking racial divisions, his willingness to deploy a lowest-rung slur \u2014 one commonly and crudely used to single out the perceived foreignness of nonwhite, non-Christian people \u2014 was largely regarded as beyond the pale.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo interesting to see \u2018Progressive\u2019 Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter<\/a>, \u201cnow loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump added: \u201cWhy don\u2019t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[In saying \u201cgo back,\u201d President Trump fanned the flames of a racial fire, our correspondent says in an analysis.<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n

Delivered on the day he had promised widespread immigration raids<\/a>, Mr. Trump\u2019s comments signaled a new low in how far he will go to affect public discourse surrounding the issue. And if his string of tweets was meant to further widen Democratic divisions in an intraparty fight, the strategy appeared quickly to backfire: House Democrats, including Ms. Pelosi<\/a>, rallied around the women, declaring in blunt terms that Mr. Trump\u2019s words echoed other xenophobic comments he has made about nonwhite immigrants.<\/p>\n

[When it comes to race, Mr. Trump plays with fire <\/em>like no other president in a century<\/em><\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

As the president\u2019s remarks reverberated around Twitter, a chorus of Americans took to social media to say that they had heard some version of Mr. Trump\u2019s words throughout their lives, beginning with childhood taunts on the playground. Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey and a presidential candidate, joined scores of people who said it was jarring to hear the phrase from the president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve heard this our whole lives,\u201d Mr. Booker said<\/a>. \u201cNow we hear it from the Oval Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Pelosi may have offered the bluntest take on Mr. Trump\u2019s comments when she said his campaign slogan, \u201cMake America Great Again,\u201d \u201chas always been about making America white again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Broadly, Mr. Trump\u2019s attack on lawmakers appeared to be meant for members of the so-called squad, a group of liberal Democratic freshmen engaged in an existential and generational war of words with Ms. Pelosi<\/a>: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

But only one of the women, Ms. Omar, who is from Somalia, was born outside the United States. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx to parents of Puerto Rican descent. Ms. Pressley, who is black, was born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago. And Ms. Tlaib was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese places need your help badly, you can\u2019t leave fast enough,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cI\u2019m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s comments were a crude addition to his continued rhetoric that the United States is too full to take in people from other countries. \u201cSorry, can\u2019t let them into our Country,\u201d Mr. Trump also tweeted on Sunday<\/a>, referring to the groups of men<\/a> held in filthy conditions in detention centers at the border. He suggested that those groups were \u201cloaded up with a big percentage of criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

His tweets came on the same weekend that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began rounding up some 2,000 undocumented immigrants<\/a>, many of whom had recently crossed the border in groups or families.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s attack on the congresswomen also followed days of Fox News coverage that centered on Ms. Omar. During her tenure in Congress, Ms. Omar has rattled fellow Democrats<\/a> and provided ammunition to Republicans for her repeated criticisms of Israel, including a comment that pro-Israel activists were pushing \u201cfor allegiance to a foreign country<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prompted by an emergency border aid package<\/a> that liberals felt did not place sufficient restrictions on the Trump administration, the back and forth between the freshmen women, Democratic moderates in the House and Ms. Pelosi has also been bruising.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The speaker spent much of the last week trying to return harmony to her restive caucus, and tensions were still raw heading into the weekend. When Ms. Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, singled out Representative Sharice Davids, a moderate Democrat and Native American from Kansas, for voting in favor of the aid package, House Democrats used their official Twitter account to slap back<\/a>. \u201cWho is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

[Mr. Chakrabarti has <\/em>become a symbol of Democratic division<\/em><\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

On Sunday, Mr. Trump may have provided the impetus for a reconciliation \u2014 however brief \u2014 that Democratic leaders and rank-and-file House members quickly embraced.<\/p>\n

Ms. Pelosi condemned Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks as \u201cxenophobic\u201d<\/a> in a pair of tweets of her own, turning them around to criticize Mr. Trump\u2019s immigration policies and project Democratic unity. \u201cOur diversity is our strength and our unity is our power,\u201d she wrote of Democrats.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, declined to comment on Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks. Representatives for Republican House leaders did not respond to emails seeking comment. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment. But Democrats began sharing their own stories, pointing out that Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks did not reflect a country whose lawmakers \u2014 and citizens \u2014 are becoming increasingly more diverse.<\/p>\n

Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas and the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called Mr. Trump a \u201cbigot.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, who left the Republican Party this month over differences with Mr. Trump and is the child of Syrian and Palestinian immigrants, declared the comments \u201cracist and disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four lawmakers in \u201cthe squad\u201d eventually weighed in and responded to the president. \u201cYou are stoking white nationalism,\u201d Ms. Omar said<\/a>, because \u201cyou are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Pressley, sharing a screenshot of the president\u2019s tweet<\/a>, declared, \u201cTHIS is what racism looks like.\u201d Ms. Tlaib said<\/a> his comments \u201cjust make me work harder,\u201d and that she is \u201cfighting corruption in OUR country.\u201d And Ms. Ocasio-Cortez sent out a series of tweets addressing the president directly. \u201cMr. President,\u201d she said in one, \u201cthe country I \u2018come from\u2019 & the country we all swear to, is the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But by Sunday evening, Mr. Trump again criticized Democrats for defending members of the group. \u201cIf the Democrat Party wants to continue to condone such disgraceful behavior,\u201d Mr. Trump said on Twitter, \u201cthen we look even more forward to seeing you at the ballot box in 2020!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Omar and Ms. Tlaib are far from the only congressional lawmakers who immigrated to the United States or were born to immigrant parents. In the House, there are currently at least 52 voting members who are immigrants or children of immigrants and 16 in the Senate \u2014 most of them Democrats \u2014 according to a Pew Research Center analysis<\/a> from this year. Aside from Ms. Omar, four other congresswomen were born outside the United States, but they have largely not involved themselves in entanglements with Ms. Pelosi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Omar has been vocal about her life as a refugee who fled Somalia and eventually settled in America, only to be disappointed with the country she found. More than any of the others in her freshman group, Ms. Omar \u2014 one of the first two Muslim women in Congress along with Ms. Tlaib \u2014 has forcefully used her personal story to make the argument that loving America does not require an acceptance of its shortcomings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in an extremely unjust society, and the only thing that made my family excited about coming to the United States was that the United States was supposed to be the country that guaranteed justice to all,\u201d Ms. Omar recently said<\/a>. \u201cSo, I feel it necessary for me to speak about that promise that\u2019s not kept.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comments like these have inflamed Fox News personalities like Tucker Carlson, who used his television program to lash out at Ms. Omar.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur country rescued Ilhan Omar,\u201d Mr. Carlson said in a broadcast last week. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do it to get rich; in fact, it cost us money. We did it because we are kind people. How did Omar respond to the remarkable gift we gave her? She scolded us, and called us names, she showered us with contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he does not hold racist views, despite his public statements. After a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Mr. Trump was widely condemned for saying that people on \u201cboth sides\u201d were to blame after one of the nationalists mowed down a group of protesters<\/a> and killed a woman. And he was one of the most vocal proponents of the conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At other times, he has used vulgar language to describe immigrants and people of color. He has defended himself<\/a> after calling people crossing into the country illegally \u201canimals\u201d \u2014 he said was referring only to MS-13 gang members. He has assailed players with the National Football League, many of whom are black, for taking a knee during the national anthem. And he has used a vulgar term to disparage immigrants from largely black nations.<\/p>\n

But, to his critics, Mr. Trump\u2019s comments on Sunday were a low point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sad to see the occupant of the Oval Office transition from empowering and encouraging racist taunts to actually using them himself,\u201d said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. \u201cIf Trump shouted the same thing at a Muslim woman wearing hijab in a Walmart, he might be arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Katie Rogers and Nicholas Fandos, July 14, 2019 WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump said on Sunday that a group of four minority congresswomen feuding with Speaker Nancy Pelosi should \u201cgo back\u201d to the countries they came from rather than \u201cloudly and viciously telling the people of the United States\u201d how to run the government. Wrapped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7690,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7689\/revisions\/7690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}