Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Measure carries no legal repercussions
Staff/wire report
WASHINGTON
In a remarkable political repudiation, the Democratic-led House voted Tuesday night to condemn President Donald 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 America – Democrats muscled the resolution through the chamber by 240-187 over strong GOP opposition. The rebuke was an embarrassing one for Trump, and he had appealed to GOP lawmakers not to go along, but there were four Republican votes for the resolution.
The measure carries no legal repercussions for the president, and the vote was highly partisan, unlikely to cost him with his die-hard conservative base.
“Make no mistake, Trump’s comments this past weekend were vile, disgusting and racist, said Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th.
“To tell four Congresswomen of color – American citizens and duly elected representatives of their communities – to go back to the so-called countries where they came from is completely unacceptable and beneath the office of the president of the United States. It’s clearly a distraction from the real issue: Donald Trump doesn’t know how to govern. Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and almost half the country can’t afford a $400 emergency. But instead of solving these real issues, Donald Trump is only concerned about how he is going to win the next 24-hour news cycle, which groups he is going to divide and which people of color he is going to attack. We deserve better,” Ryan said.
Before the showdown roll call, Trump characteristically plunged forward with time-tested 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 of California 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 left-leaning 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 21/2 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 of California 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.
Some rank-and-file 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.