House votes to condemn Trump’s tweets as ‘racist.’
WASHINGTON — In a remarkable political repudiation, the Democraticled House voted Tuesday night to condemn President Trump’s “racist comments” against four congresswomen of color, despite protestations by Trump’s Republican congressional allies and his own insistence he hasn’t “a racist bone in my body.”
Two days after Trump tweeted that four Democratic freshmen should “go back” to their home countries — though all are citizens and three were born in the U.S. — Democrats muscled the resolution through the chamber by 240187 over strong GOP opposition. The rebuke was an embarrassing one for Trump, and he had appealed to GOP lawmakers not to go along, but four Republicans voted for the resolution.
The measure carries no legal repercussions for the president and the vote was highly partisan, unlikely to cost him with his diehard conservative base.
Before the showdown roll call, Trump characteristically plunged forward with timetested insults. He accused his four outspoken critics of “spewing some of the most vile, hateful and disgusting things ever said by a politician” and added, “If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!” — echoing taunts long unleashed against political dissidents rather than opposing parties’ lawmakers.
The president was joined by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, RBakersfield, and other top Republicans in trying to redirect the focus from Trump’s original tweets, which for three days have consumed Washington and drawn widespread condemnation. Instead, they tried playing offense by accusing the four congresswomen — among the Democrats’ most leftleaning members and ardent Trump critics — of socialism, an accusation that’s already a central theme of the GOP’s 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns.
Even after 2½ years of Trump’s turbulent governing style, the spectacle of a president futilely laboring to head off a House vote essentially proclaiming him to be a racist was extraordinary.
Underscoring the stakes, Republicans formally objected after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DSan Francisco, said during a floor speech that Trump’s tweets were “racist.” Led by Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, Republicans moved to have her words stricken from the record, a rare procedural rebuke.
Dublin Rep. Eric Swalwell had his own tussle with Republicans on the House floor, when he later listed a collection of Trump’s actions as “racist,” including his infamous “s—hole countries” comment about countries like Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. Collins again objected, prompting Swalwell to ask Collins if he was prepared to argue they weren’t racist. After some discussion with the House parliamentarian, Swalwell agreed to withdraw his “offensive word” and Collins dropped his objection.
After a delay exceeding 90 minutes, No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland ruled that Pelosi had indeed violated a House rule against characterizing an action as racist. Hoyer was presiding after Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri stormed away from the presiding officer’s chair, lamenting, “We want to just fight,” which he apparently aimed at Republicans. Despite Hoyer’s ruling, Democrats flexed their muscle and the House voted afterward by party line to leave Pelosi’s words intact in the record.
Some rankandfile GOP lawmakers have agreed that Trump’s words were racist, but on Tuesday party leaders insisted they were not and accused Democrats of using the resulting tumult to score political points. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump wasn’t racist, but he also called on leaders “from the president to the speaker to the freshman members of the House” to attack ideas, not the people who espouse them.
Hours earlier, Trump tweeted, “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”
Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez of New York, one of Trump’s four targets, returned his fire.
“You’re right, Mr. President — you don’t have a racist bone in your body. You have a racist mind in your head and a racist heart in your chest,” she tweeted.