Mnuchin Says Trump’s Tweets on Minority Lawmakers Weren’t Racist

(Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he didn’t consider President Donald Trump’s tweets on Sunday about minority congresswomen to be racist.

Mnuchin found himself drawn into the furor over the tweets, in which the president suggested that the lawmakers “go back” to “crime infested places from which they came,” during a White House briefing on cryptocurrency.

“I don’t find them racist. The president just went on and clarified his comments. I think he speaks for himself on that and he was very clear,” Mnuchin said Monday. He bristled at subsequent questions on the topic.

“We have a lot of important topics, I’ve already answered my one comment on this, I think I was very clear on this,” he said. “I think the president clarified his comment, I understand what the president’s comment is, I’m not concerned by the president’s comment, and again, that’s the last comment I’m going to make on this issue.”

Democrats have roundly called Trump’s tweets racist, and a handful of Republicans weighed in on Monday to call for the president to retract the remarks.

“The president’s tweet that some members of Congress should go back to the ‘places from which they came’ was way over the line, and he should take that down,” Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said in a statement.

Trump stood by the tweets on Monday and renewed his attacks on the lawmakers, led by by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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