Trump ‘go back’ tweet condemned as racist

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump was accused of being racist and divisive by many Democrats after suggesting that four female Democratic lawmakers, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, should return to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Three of the four women Trump was apparently referencing were born in the US; none is white. The comments came as US authorities prepared raids to round up undocumented immigrants for deportation.
The tweets from Trump started and continued on Monday and seemed aimed at first-term Representatives Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. “The Squad,” as the progressive quartet is known, has been engaged in an intra-party dispute with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump said the lawmakers “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and should go back and help fix the countries and “then come back and show us how it is done.”
Trump later returned to Twitter to say it was “sad to see the Democrats sticking up for people who speak so badly of our Country and who, in addition, hate Israel.”
On Monday, Trump said in a tweet the “Radical Left Congresswomen” should apologise to “our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said.”
His comments come as US immigration officials prepare to conduct raids in about ten cities around the US to round up individuals who’ve received deportation orders, and as reports continue to circulate about poor conditions for migrants in US detention facilities on the US border with Mexico.
In response, Pelosi called the tweets “xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation,” and Democratic Representative Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico decried “a racist tweet from a racist president.”
Ocasio-Cortez sent four tweets of her own, saying Trump was “angry” because he doesn’t “believe in an America” where women like those in the Squad are elected to Congress.
“You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder,” she said.
Pressley said on Twitter “THIS is what racism looks like. WE are what democracy looks like. And we’re not going anywhere.”
Omar said Trump was “stoking white nationalism and you are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda.”
Tlaib was also blunt: “Want a response to a lawless & complete failure of a President?”’ she tweeted. “He is the crisis. His dangerous ideology is the crisis.”
Democratic presidential hopefuls also weighed in. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that “unfortunately, there’s an American tradition of telling people to go back to where they came from” and that Trump was trying to “gin up his base” by keeping Americans divided.
“You don’t expect to hear it from the president of the United States,” de Blasio said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.
Lujan, assistant Speaker and a member of the Hispanic Caucus in the House, became emotional on “Fox News Sunday” when shown Trump’s tweet. “That is a racist tweet. Telling people to go back where they came from? I think that’s wrong,” he said.
Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, noted in a tweet that “I’m young, from an immigrant family, also very critical of Trump. Funny thing though, he never tells me to ‘go back where I come from.’ Hmm I wonder why?”
Republicans were mostly silent. Joe Walsh, a former GOP representative from Illinois who’s now a commentator and often a critic of the president, said that “To say ‘go back to where you came from’ is gross. It’s offensive, ignorant, anti-American, and racist.”
Pelosi told the New York Times that the vocal freshmen lawmakers were just “four people” among the Democratic House majority after a party split over a $4.6 billion border funding bill.

‘Trump’s tweets on female lawmakers unacceptable’
Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump used “completely unacceptable” language to describe four female Democratic lawmakers, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman told reporters in London on Monday, potentially exacerbating the recent tensions with Washington.
Trump posted a series of tweets on Sunday suggesting that four US lawmakers, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, should return to the “broken and crime infested places from which
they came.”
May thinks “the language used to refer to these women was completely unacceptable,” her spokesman, James Slack, told reporters on Monday.
May’s office publicised her criticism of Trump as she entered her final few days as the UK’s prime minister. She’s had a fraught relationship with the US president, who last week criticised her handling of Brexit.
The transatlantic alliance is already under strain after a controversy over leaked comments from Britain’s ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, in which he criticised the Trump administration.
The president froze Darroch out of meetings in Washington, and the envoy resigned last week.
May’s comments are likely to put pressure on the two rivals to succeed her, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson, to join her in denouncing the president’s language when they take part in a live debate on Tuesday evening. Johnson has been widely criticised over his perceived failure to stand by Darroch, though the front-runner in the Tory leadership contest denied he was unsupportive and said the incident had become politicised.