Ocasio-Cortez, Allies Say They Won’t Be Baited by Trump Attacks
Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump and Republicans have been attempting to paint Democrats as socialists.
(Bloomberg) -- Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her three allies in Congress said verbal attacks from President Donald Trump won’t distract them from their agenda as they decried his tweets as racist.
“I am not surprised that he uses the rhetoric he does,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the president. “But I also know that we are focused.”
But Trump is trying to keep the argument going. As the four lawmakers began a news conference late Monday afternoon, Trump tweeted: “The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four ‘progressives,’ but now they are forced to embrace them. That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for the Democrats!”
Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who joined Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan at a Capitol news conference, urged their colleagues and the public to avoid letting the president’s words distract from the issues the country must confront. She said that included the detention of immigrants on the border, health care, gun violence and prescription drug prices, as well as corruption at the White House.
“Do not take the bait,” she said. “This is simply a disruption and a distraction from the callous, chaotic and corrupt culture of this administration.”
Omar said Trump is promoting “the agenda of white nationalists.”
The back-and-forth unfolded against a backdrop of a roiling controversy over the administration’s immigration crackdown, the detention of thousands of migrants in overburdened facilities and a plan to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants who cross the U.S. southern border.
‘Go Back’
Trump’s weekend tweet saying that “‘Progressive’ Democratic Congresswomen” should “go back” to the countries they came from rather than criticize the U.S. -- long a slur against minorities -- united a fractious Democratic Party in denouncing his rhetoric as racist and even drew a rare public rebuke from some Republicans.
Trump didn’t use their names but was clearly referring to Ocasio-Cortez and her three allies. Only Omar, a refugee from Somalia, was born outside of the U.S., and all four are minorities elected in 2018 from left-leaning heavily Democratic districts.
On Monday, Trump made clear that was who he was referring to and escalated the attacks.
”We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of Communists, they hate Israel, they hate our own Country, they’re calling the guards along our Border (the Border Patrol Agents) Concentration Camp Guards, they accuse people who support Israel as doing it for the Benjamin’s...,” he tweeted.
He denied to reporters outside the White House that his tweets over the two days about the women were racist. He said they have been “complaining constantly” about the United States.
Omar responded at the news conference, “When this president ran and until today, he talked about everything that was wrong in this country and how he was going to make it great.”
“And so for him to condemn us and to say we are un-American for wanting to work hard to make this country be the country we all deserve to live in, it’s complete hypocrisy,” she said.
Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump and Republicans have been attempting to paint Democrats as socialists and trying to make Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic-socialist, the symbol of the Democratic Party. Trump also is playing to the country’s racial divisions and stoking the anti-immigrant fervor that helped him win election.
Pressley said Trump “is, if nothing else, predictable.”
‘Blatantly Racist’
Omar said that the president was attempted to deflect attention from his own failings by “launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday the House would vote on a resolution condemning Trump’s attacks on the four female Democratic lawmakers, and a handful of GOP lawmakers joined in the denunciations of his statements.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell deflected questions from reporters, saying he’d “be happy to respond” on Tuesday.
But some GOP lawmakers took the unusual step of directly criticizing Trump, who remains a powerful force with the party’s base.
Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina decried the president’s “unacceptable personal attacks and racially offensive language,” saying it would further divide the nation.
Ohio Republican Representative Mike Turner said on Twitter that Trump’s tweets over the weekend “were racist and he should apologize.”
In a statement, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, described the president’s remarks as “destructive, demeaning, and disunifying.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo
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