Connecticut delegation: Tweet was racist, hurtful
Joining scores of Democrats and a handful Republican colleagues, members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation Monday condemned as racist recent comments by President Trump directed at minority lawmakers.
“This is bullying in every sense of the word,” said Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th. “It’s hurtful, it’s demeaning to me, it’s personally offensive to me. It’s racist. There’s no other way to describe it.”
Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted that Trump’s words were “naked, disgusting racism” and called them “sickening” in an interview.
“The president seems to be doubling down on his strategy of using race and racism as a means to consolidate his base and divide us from each other,” he said.
On Sunday Trump told four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all women of
color, to return to “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Trump refused to back down Monday and urged the women to leave the country if they “are not happy here.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, urged her Democratic colleagues to support a resolution condemning Trump’s tweets. Three of the four Congresswomen Trump targeted — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts— were born in the U.S. The fourth, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, was born in Somalia and became a U.S. citizen in 2000. “On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don’t fear you either,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted back at Trump. “You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us.” Trump’s comments have “nothing to do with birthplace,” tweeted Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, who was born in Peru to American parents. “I actually am a foreignborn Member of Congress. But I’m a white male of European descent, so there’s no chance he’ll attack me,” Himes said. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd, retweeted a similar tweet from Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pennsylvania and a son of Irish immigrants. Courtney said in an interview view that Trump’s “totally unacceptable” attacks on the four Congresswomen were “a new low in terms of his misuse of the holy pulpit of the presidency.”
Trump undermined and dismissed the fact that America is populated by immigrants and their descendants, Courtney said.
Hayes was elected as Connecticut’s first AfricanAmerican congresswoman last year. She was a teacher before she became a member of Congress, and any student who said what Trump said would be disciplined, she said in an interview.
Her district is 73 percent white and elected her because of her values, not because of the color of her skin, she said. “That is more indicative and reflective of the people in this country.”
Rep. John Larson, D-1st, and Rep Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd, released statements Monday afternoon calling Trump’s comments racist and expressing support for the freshman Congresswomen. The attacks are beneath the office of the presidency, Larson tweeted.
“I am proud to serve every day with those who take their oath of office seriously and make our country better, unlike the President,” DeLauro said in an email.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal kept his comment on Sunday minimal.
“President Trump’s nauseating tweets this morning would be beneath comment—if they weren’t sadly from the President of the United States,” he tweeted.
Tess Vrbin can be reached at tvrbin@courant.com.