President Donald Trump was clearly pandering to the most racist members of his base when, over the weekend, he tweeted that four congresswomen of color needed to go back to the countries they came from. The comment was obviously aimed at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — the liberal/progressive alliance known as “The Squad” in the House of Representatives. And Trump, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, was lambasted from both the left and the right during the Monday broadcast of ABC’s “The View.”
Graham defended Trump during a Fox News appearance on Monday. But all four co-hosts of “The View” — Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Meghan McCain (daughter of the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona) and Sunny Hostin — denounced Trump’s comments as inexcusable.
Goldberg stressed that Trump’s comments were not only racist — they were ridiculous, as everyone in The Squad is a U.S. citizen. The only born outside the United States is Omar, who was born in Somalia but has been a U.S. citizen for 19 years. And although Ocasio-Cortez’s family was originally from Puerto Rico, she was born in the Bronx and is a native New Yorker.
Goldberg asserted, “Rashida Tlaib — born in Detroit, Michigan. Ayanna Pressley, born in Cincinnati. Born in Cincinnati. American citizen. Ilhan Omar has been a citizen since 2000, when she was 17.”
Goldberg said of Trump, “Don’t do this. You don’t want to start this fight ….. It is our job and their job, frankly, as American citizens to tell you when you’re wrong.”
The liberal Behar interjected that Trump knows that Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley “were born here. He knows it, just like he knows that (former President Barack) Obama wasn’t born in Kenya. He just does this as a racist whistle to people who follow him.”
Hostin commented that she was dismayed by the fact that on Twitter, “something like 90,000 people liked” Trump’s bigoted attack on The Squad.
The right-wing McCain was no less forceful than Goldberg or Behar in condemning Trump’s comments, asserting, “It’s deeply xenophobic and racist on a lot of different levels. My sister was not born in this country, OK? My sister wasn’t born here. She’s as American as I am in every way.”
McCain added, “There are legitimate political criticisms you can make of ‘The Squad,’ which we do on this show”—a statement Goldberg agreed with. But McCain stressed that Trump’s comments were totally unacceptable, and she called out Graham — who was once a close political ally of her father — for defending Trump, saying, “This is not the person I used to know.”
McCain added that many other Republicans are showing their “cowardice” by remaining silent about Trump’s remarks. And as a conservative, McCain emphasized, she is troubled by their silence because “this is what people think all conservatives are now, and we are not.”
Goldberg specifically called out African-American conservatives, saying, “Black Republicans, where the hell are you?”
Watch the video below:
https://caching.grabien.com/c/streams/0653/tSARvtWRTsKGq_BibqRSlg/1563261952/653537.mp4
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