US President Donald Trump has redoubled his attack on four Democratic congresswomen, accusing them of \u201chating our country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave,\u201d he"},"modified":"2019-07-15T22:47:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T22:47:34","slug":"trump-steps-up-attack-on-us-hating-congresswomen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/07\/15\/trump-steps-up-attack-on-us-hating-congresswomen\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump steps up attack on ‘US-hating’ congresswomen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
US President Donald Trump has redoubled his attack on four Democratic congresswomen, accusing them of \u201chating our country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave,\u201d he told a heated news conference outside the White House.<\/p>\n
On Sunday Mr Trump called on the women, who are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, to \u201cgo back\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was widely accused of racism and xenophobia, which he denied.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are people that in my opinion hate our country,\u201d President Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned if you hate our country, if you\u2019re not happy here, you can leave. You can leave right now. I don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to miss \u2019em,\u201d he said, to applause from some in the audience.<\/p>\n
Asked by a reporter if he was concerned that his tweets had been seen by some as racist, Mr Trump said he was not.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t concern me because many people agree with me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump sparked a furore in Sunday\u2019s series of tweets in which he said the women \u201coriginally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe\u201d.<\/p>\n
He did not explicitly name the women, but the context made a clear link.<\/p>\n
The four \u2013 US-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar, who came to the US as a refugee aged 12 \u2013 all called the president racist and were backed by members of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Ms Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx in New York, about 12 miles away from the Queens hospital where Mr Trump was born.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump lashed out particularly at Ms Omar, saying she \u201chates Israel\u201d and \u201chates Jews\u201d, as well as suggesting she supported the jihadist group al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, I never met her, I hear the way she talks about al-Qaeda,\u201d Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAl-Qaeda has killed many Americans. She said, \u2018you can hold your chest out, when I think of America, when I think of al-Qaeda, I can hold my chest out.’\u201d<\/p>\n
US media reported that Mr Trump\u2019s accusations probably reference a 2013 interview where Ms Omar was discussing a college terrorism class.<\/p>\n
She did not praise al-Quaeda in the interview. Ms Omar remarked that a professor said the names of terrorist groups with a different kind of \u201cintensity\u201d than he said \u201cAmerica\u201d or \u201cEngland\u201d.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the reaction?<\/h2>\n
On Monday, Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a statement the tweets were \u201cway over the line\u201d and should be removed, while Republican Congressman Will Hurd, who is African American, described the comments as \u201cracist and xenophobic\u201d.<\/p>\n
Former Ohio Governor John Kasich said Mr Trump\u2019s remarks were \u201cdeplorable and beneath the dignity of the office\u201d and called on Republicans to \u201cspeak out against these kinds of comments that do nothing more than divide us\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Republican Congressman Andy Harris defended Mr Trump,\u00a0telling WBAL radio: \u201cClearly it\u2019s not a racist comment. He could have meant go back to the district they came from, the neighbourhood they came from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump keeps pushing racial boundaries<\/h2>\n
Analysis by Gary O\u2019Donoghue, BBC Washington\u00a0<\/strong>C<\/strong>orrespondent<\/strong><\/p>\nTelling people of colour to go back to where they came from cannot be regarded as anything other than a blatant evocation of a well-worn trope of racist language and sentiment that\u2019s as old as the hills.<\/p>\n
But usually politicians who want to play the race card reach for the \u201cdog whistle\u201d \u2013 a political nudge and a wink that tells their supporters that they share their views that cannot easily be voiced in a liberal democracy without alienating people whose support they will need.<\/p>\n
President Trump, however, has pushed the boundaries on racially charged language ever since he became a candidate.<\/p>\n
Remember how Mexicans were Rapists and Drug dealers, how there were \u201cgood people\u201d on both sides of the argument when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, and how the President didn\u2019t see why America should allow more people in from \u201cshithole\u201d countries in Africa.<\/p>\n
So what is his strategy? Keeping his core support fired up is unquestionably part of it. And exploiting divisions within Democratic ranks which have had racial overtones in recent days is another reason for his actions.<\/p>\n
But in many ways, we should not be surprised by this President ratcheting up the political heat in this particular way.<\/p>\n
After all, it\u2019s a short intellectual step from the economic nationalism encapsulated in the idea of America First, to a more thorough-going nationalism that sees a threat from the enemy within.<\/p>\n
Follow Gary O\u2019Donoghue on Twitter for more analysis<\/strong><\/p>\nDespite criticism, President Trump launched another Twitter tirade on Monday morning, calling on the women themselves to apologise \u2013 to him and \u201cthe people of Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has also accused Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi of racism, after she said the president\u2019s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, was \u201cabout making America white again\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a very racist statement,\u201d Mr Trump said. \u201cI\u2019m surprised she\u2019d say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter to Democrats on Monday, Mrs Pelosi announced a resolution in the House to condemn the \u201cdisgusting attacks\u201d.<\/p>\n
Also on Monday, Mr Trump\u2019s attorney general William Barr delivered remarks at a Department of Justice forum on battling anti-Semitism, where he condemned \u201cidentity politics\u201d and said he was \u201cdeeply concerned about the rise in hate crimes and political violence\u201d in the last decade.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the background?<\/h2>\n
In his initial Twitter thread, Mr Trump did not specifically mention a link to recent news events, but immigration at the southern border was a dominant topic in US news at the weekend.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ms Tlaib and Ms Pressley testified to a House committee about conditions in a migrant detention centre they had visited. They expressed horror about alleged mistreatment happening \u201cunder American flags\u201d.<\/p>\n
The president replied by tweeting that children\u2019s detention centres had had \u201cgreat reviews\u201d and the adult male areas were \u201cloaded up with a big percentage of criminals\u201d.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time Mr Trump has been accused of racism.<\/p>\n
For years, he made false claims that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US \u2013 propagating the racist \u201cbirther\u201d conspiracy.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump and his father Fred Trump were sued by the Department of Justice in 1973 for discrimination against African Americans in their renting practices. They settled the case without admitting guilt in 1975 but were accused again by the justice department in 1978 of an \u201cunderlying pattern of discrimination\u201d against black tenants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has redoubled his attack on four Democratic congresswomen, accusing them of \u201chating our country\u201d. \u201cIf you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave,\u201d he told a heated news conference outside the White House. On Sunday Mr Trump called on the women, who are from ethnically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\n
Trump steps up attack on 'US-hating' congresswomen - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/07\/15\/trump-steps-up-attack-on-us-hating-congresswomen\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Trump steps up attack on 'US-hating' congresswomen - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"US President Donald Trump has redoubled his attack on four Democratic congresswomen, accusing them of \u201chating our country\u201d. \u201cIf you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave,\u201d he told a heated news conference outside the White House. 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