Most GOPer’s have remained silent….
But some have begun to speak out…
Not forcefully…
President Trump’s attacks on four minority Democratic lawmakers have created a rift in the GOP, putting many Republicans on the defensive.
Most are seeking to steer clear of the firestorm, but a few GOP lawmakers came out against Trump’s suggestion that the four women of color “go back” to their home countries, even though all are U.S. citizens.
One of the strongest denunciations came from Rep. Will Hurd (Texas), the only African American House Republican, whose district has a large number of Hispanic residents. He blasted Trump’s tweets as “racist” and “xenophobic” in a CNN interview.
He called the president’s remarks “unbecoming of the leader of the free world.”
Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the lone African American Republican in the Senate, characterized Trump’s language as “unacceptable” and “racially offensive.”
The president’s comments also drew rebukes from GOP lawmakers facing tough reelection campaigns.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is seeking another term in a state that voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, urged Trump to delete his tweets attacking the Democratic lawmakers and implying they’re not real Americans.
“I disagree strongly with many of the views and comments of some of the far-left members of the House Democratic Caucus … but the President’s tweet that some Members of Congress should go back to the ‘places from which they came’ was way over the line, and he should take that down,” Collins said in a statement.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said Trump was “wrong” to say the four Democrats — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) — go back to the countries where they are from.
“Three of the four were born in America and the citizenship of all four is as valid as mine,” Toomey said.
But other GOP lawmakers were more timid in their efforts to steer Trump away from stoking racial resentment….
2 Republican Senators up for reelection in 2020 defended Trump’s comments yesterday–Steve Dainesxof MT and Tom Tillis of NC.
I wonder if CG “hopes” they will be reelected.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark)….
“I think what he sees is a lot of extremism from the House Democrats. … The president is gonna tweet what he’s gonna tweet.”
Cotton is just telling us to prepare for when Trump tweets the N word and Republicans like him shrug
Scott?
Even Trump’s NOT THAT stupid….
That won’t be in a typed Tweet; it will come in some slurred word at a rally that Trump will explain away with a “just kidding” grin.
Or more likely from the crowd at one of his fanfests, which Trump will pretend not to hear at the same time he’s encouraging more of the crowd to shout it even louder.
‘THAT’ would REALLY set things on political fire…
Sen. Lindsay Graham is also up for re-election in South Carolina next year.
He didn’t (unlike when he was running for President against Trump in 2016) rebuke the President.s comments as make excuses for them before a standard GOP whataboutism against the Democrats = socialists (I can only wish…) in Congress and the presidential primaries.
NOT what his fellow Republican Senator from the Palmetto State, Tim Scott, said. And I think that philosophically Tim Scott is a much more ardent conservative/libertarian than Lindsay Graham.
…. but J. Strom Thurmond ??
And if they went back to fix the corrupt, crime-ridden country they came from, it would be the Confederate States of America.