DON RAPS NC RALLY CRY
Disavows ‘send her back’ call by supporters echoing his tweet
President Trump said Thursday he disagreed with the “Send her back!” chants that erupted from the crowd at his rally in North Carolina as he was launching an attack against Somalia-born Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“I was not happy with it — I disagree with it,” Trump said during a White House event. “But again, I didn’t say that. They did.”
Asked why he didn’t stop the audience, Trump said, “I think I did — I started speaking very quickly.”
At the rally Wednesday evening in Greenville, the president was ticking off a list of un-American actions that he accused the freshman Democrat from Minnesota of committing as the audience began to stir.
“And obviously, and importantly, Omar has a history of launching vicious anti-Semitic screeds,” he said as the crowd without prompting started chanting “Send her back!”
Trump paused for 13 seconds as the chanting continued before resuming: “And she talked about the evil Israel and it’s all about the Benjamins, not a good thing to say.”
First Daughter Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser, had earlier expressed her dislike of the chants, White House officials told The Wall Street Journal.
A group of House Republicans, including members of leadership, complained about the chanting to Vice President Mike Pence at a breakfast meeting Thursday.
The president has been railing about Omar and three of her House colleagues since Sunday, when he told them in a tweet to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-in
fested places from which they came.”
Omar was born in Somalia and came to the US when she was 12, and became a naturalized citizen at 17.
The other three progressive first-term lawmakers — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — were born in the United States.
The four freshmen together are known as The Squad. Some Republicans criticized the chants. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said “there’s no place for that kind of talk. I don’t agree with it.”
But he defended Trump, asserting there isn’t “a racist bone in the president’s body.
“What he was trying to say, he said wrong. What he was trying to say is that if you don’t appreciate this country, you don’t have to be here,” Emmer said.
“That goes for every one of us. Has nothing to do with your race, gender, your family history, but has to do with respecting and loving the country that has given you the opportunities that you have.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) tweeted that refrain was “ugly, wrong, & would send chills down the spine of our Founding Fathers.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the chants were started by a small group in the crowd.
“He moved on in the speech, he never joined in it,” the California Republican said.
Still, GOPers said they were totally behind the president in attacking the four freshman female lawmakers’ far-left political views.
Emmer, who’s tasked with winning back the House for the GOP in 2020, made clear that Republicans will be running against socialism and will elevate The Squad to make their case against the entire party.
Emmer claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is no longer the leader of the Democrats — the lefty freshmen are.
McCarthy added, “This is about socialism versus freedom.”
The Democratic-led House voted Tuesday to condemn Trump’s tweets as racist.
On Wednesday, it rejected an effort by one Democrat to impeach Trump, a move opposed by party leaders.
Omar responded on Twitter: “I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal!”