Brown calls Trump racist, draws cheers

“He’s a racist.”

That simple yet stark declaration about President Donald Trump gave Sen. Sherrod Brown one of his biggest rounds of applause Friday from a crowd of more than 300 at the Columbus Metropolitan Club.

The Ohio Democrat, who has made the accusation before, cited instances from allegations of housing discrimination by the U.S. Department of Justice under President Richard Nixon, to Trump insisting on the guilt of the exonerated Central Park Five, to his birther campaign against Barack Obama, to comments about “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, to accounts of former Trump workers.

“I think this whole presidential election is going to be Donald Trump playing to race and immigration and fear,” Brown said.

After his 50-minute talk, the senator was asked by reporters for his takeaway on Trump’s insulting tweet and ensuing comments about how four Democratic congresswomen of color should go back to where they came from.

“It says he doesn’t understand history or doesn’t care about it, that he doesn’t

share American values,” Brown said. “It was racist in this case, and it’s un-american every time someone says that to an immigrant.”

Still, while a growing number of Democrats in Congress are pushing to launch impeachment proceedings, Brown says that threshold has not yet been crossed.

“I think investigations should go forward. I think that the president has done all kinds of things that are wrong and maybe illegal. I think he’s obstructed justice. But the political system isn’t ready to do that. Maybe it will be at some point, but I think our focus should be on defeating Donald Trump for re-election. He’s not fit to be president of the United States.”

Brown and his younger daughter, Columbus Councilwoman Elizabeth Brown, appeared at a Metropolitan Club forum entitled “Public Service: It’s a Family Business.” Older daughter Emily, a public interest lawyer who often represents immigrant families, was in the audience.

So was 86-year-old Tom Tucker.

As soon as he stood up to ask a question, Brown realized, “I was his paper boy!”

Indeed he was, back in the 1960s when he delivered the Mansfield News Journal in his hometown.

Not only that, Tucker brought his wife, Kate, and three of their four children. Afterward, the family proudly displayed photos from an event they hosted in 1974, in what they said was Brown’s first campaign gathering. (For some reason Brown was wearing a flower). Fresh out of Yale University, Brown upset a Republican member of the Ohio House and became (at the time) the youngest lawmaker in Ohio history.

For a time, the Brown family envisioned political greatness for Sherrod and his two older brothers: Charlie, who was West Virginia attorney general, and Bob, who worked for the Ohio Department of Transportation. Bob just retired from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Charlie is performing public interest legal work.

Now it’s the senator and his daughter, running for a second City Council term after winning her political debut in 2015.

Elizabeth Brown remembers that her father made almost all of her school events even through he and her mother were divorced when she was young and living several counties apart. But both sisters also spent substantial time on the campaign trail.

“Emily and I both had to develop some thick skin, because every two years someone was trying to take his job,” she said.

But the moment she remembers the most came as the three were leaving church services after Congress had approved the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which denied gay couples the right to marry. A man stopped the then-congressman and said he just wanted to say thanks for opposing the measure, which easily passed and eventually was signed by President Bill Clinton.

The councilwoman remembers the lasting lesson from her father acknowledging to his daughters that taking the unpopular stand would likely cost him votes in the next election.

“I really ran for office because of my dad, because I don’t know that otherwise I would have had the faith … that I can do this work, and that I can make an impact without having to compromise principle,” she said.