Trump says he regrets chant
‘Send her back’ criticized by Democrats, some Republicans
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump did something Thursday he rarely ever does: He expressed regret that his supporters chanted, “Send her back,” at a Greenville,
North Carolina, rally Wednesday night after Trump panned Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-minn., as anti-american.
“I feel a little bit badly about it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding that he disagreed with the chant.
Asked why he didn’t try to stop the chant, Trump replied, “I think I did. I started speaking very quickly.” But video of the event showed the president paused for 13 seconds as his supporters repeated the refrain, “Send her back.”
It was a moment reminiscent of 2016 campaign events when Trump supporters chanted, “Lock her up,” after Trump mentioned his rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
It was a week of finger-pointing from Trump and four first-term members of Congress known as
“the squad” — Omar and Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-mich., Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, D-N.Y., and Ayanna Pressley, D-mass. — who frequently refer to Trump as a racist.
Thursday morning, Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks tweeted, “The ‘send her back’ chants were wrong, vile, and don’t reflect who we are as Americans.” Brooks added that while he disagreed with Omar’s viewpoints, “those chants have no place in our society.”
Brooks told the Las Vegas Review-journal he is “not a ‘Never Trumper’ at all. I’m a proud supporter of the president,” and he thinks Trump is the most pro-israel president ever.
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-minn., also targeted the Greenville chanters while giving Trump a pass. Emmer told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast that what Trump “was trying to say, he said wrong.” As for the “Send her back” chant, he said, there is “no place for that kind of talk.”
Former Rep. Joe Walsh, R-ill., tweeted that the chant was “ugly.
It’s ignorant. It’s dangerous. And it’s un-american. It’s flat out bigotry. And every Republican should condemn this bigotry immediately.”
Even House Chaplain Pat Conroy chimed in with an opening prayer that recognized the “difficult and contentious week in which darker spirits seem to have been at play in the people’s house.”
#Istandwithilhan became a popular hashtag on Twitter. Omar herself reacted on Twitter with a hand-waving emoji and the caveat, “I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal!”
House Democrats voiced their concern for the security of “the squad,” who have been recipients of death threats.
Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, said in a statement, “The Squad, as they call themselves, are now the leaders of the Democrat Party. Americans don’t like it when elected officials consistently disparage this country. All the Democrats are pushing socialist ideas that are terrible for America. They are all the same.”
Murtaugh told the Review-journal the chants were “spontaneous” and not prompted by the campaign. Trump told reporters that if supporters started the same chant in the future, he would try to stop them.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at Dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @Debrajsaunders on Twitter.