Advisers to president defend his racist rants
A week after his racist tweets about four minority congresswomen, President Donald Trump’s aides on Sunday defended his behavior, even as top Democrats sharply criticized him and pushed for greater accountability.
Stephen Miller, a White House senior adviser, had a heated back-and-forth with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace over the president’s tweets as well as a North Carolina Trump rally where the crowd chanted “send her back,” targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Omar was born in Somalia and has been a U.S. citizen since she was 17.
Miller defended Trump and said the term “racist” has become a label used to silence and punish people.
Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, reiterated that he and Trump were not pleased with the chanting but declined to directly address supporters and tell them not to do it again.
“The president was very clear that he wasn’t happy about it, and that if it happened again, he might make an effort to speak out about it,” Pence said in an interview with CBS News.
Trump kicked off a firestorm with a tweet in which he said that Omar and three other minority congresswomen frequently critical of the administration — Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Asked Sunday about Trump’s frequent criticism of the country, Miller said that anybody running for office points out what the country can do better but that there’s a difference between those who want to strengthen the “principles of Western civilization” versus people who “want to turn our country into Venezuela.”
“There is a gigantic, enormous distinction between Donald Trump saying, ‘I’m going to get on the world stage and put America first in every single thing we do,’ versus a view that says, ‘America should never come first, and American citizens should never come first,’ which is their view, and that’s what we’re going to take to the ballot box,” Miller said.
Trump has made statements that America needs to improve “out of love” for the country, Miller said.
Wallace at one point questioned Miller about a 2014 tweet in which Trump said of President Barack Obama, “Everything he touches turns to garbage.” Ocasio-Cortez has used the term “garbage” to describe certain Trump administration policies, and Republicans have over the past week sharply criticized her over the statement, which they have falsely said was aimed at the country as a whole.
Miller responded by arguing, “These four congresswomen detest America as it is currently constructed.”
Omar continued to criticize Trump and Republicans Saturday night, tweeting that the president’s supporters “should end this charade and accept that this racist president wants every black/brown person deported and Muslims banned. His immigration policies say this much!”
Trump on Sunday morning fired back, declaring in a tweet, “I don’t believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country.
“They should apologize to America [and Israel] for the horrible [hateful] things they have said.”
A CBS News-YouGov poll released Sunday shows that 59 percent of Americans disagree with Trump’s tweets last week telling the congresswomen to “go back,” while 40 percent of respondents agree with Trump’s remarks.
Views were split sharply along party lines: 82 percent of Republicans agree with Trump’s remarks, while 88 percent of Democrats disagree.