TRUMP NOT HAPPY WITH ‘SEND HER BACK’ CHANTS
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday chided his supporters who chanted “send her back” when he questioned the loyalty of a Somali-born congresswoman, joining widespread criticism of the campaign crowd’s cry after fellow Republicans warned it could hurt the GOP in next year’s elections
In a week that has corkscrewed daily with hostile exchanges over race and love of country, Trump also claimed he had tried to stop the chant at a reelection event Wednesday night in North Carolina.
“I started speaking really quickly,” he told reporters. “I was not happy with it. I disagree with it” and “would certainly try” to stop any similar chant at a future rally.
However, video shows the crowd’s “send her back” shouts resounded for 13 seconds as Trump made no attempt to interrupt them. He paused in his speech and surveyed the scene, taking in the uproar. The taunt’s target — Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — was pressed for a response on Thursday, as Trump was.
“This is what this president and his supporters have turned our country” into, she said as she walked outside the U.S. Capitol. “This is not about me. This is about fighting about what this country truly should be and what it deserves to be.”
“I believe he is fascist,” she said.
Trump, though taking issue with the chant, didn’t back away Thursday from his criticism of Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen of color.
They have “a big obligation and the obligation is to love your country,” he said. “There’s such hatred. They have such hatred.”
Citing Trump’s rhetoric, House Democrats said they were discussing arranging security for Omar and the three other congresswomen. The Democratic-led House voted Tuesday to condemn Trump’s tweets as racist.
The chants at the Trump rally brought scathing criticism from GOP lawmakers as well as from Democrats, though the Republicans did not fault Trump himself.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California declared the chant has “no place in our party and no place in this country.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois tweeted that it was “ugly, wrong, & would send chills down the spines of our Founding Fathers. This ugliness must end, or we risk our great union.”