'Call a spade a spade': Trump tweets about congresswomen were racist: liberal activist
CBC Radio | Posted: July 16, 2019 3:56 PM | Last Updated: July 16, 2019
Reluctance to criticize Trump underlines 'hyper-partisanship' in U.S.: Sally Kohn
The row over U.S. President Donald Trump's tweets targeting four Democratic Congresswomen "is a very telling moment in [U.S.] hyper-partisanship," according to a liberal activist and author.
Sally Kohn said that people have often tried to take Trump's statements or tweets and "interpret them in their most generous light, and maybe shade the criticism as ... race baiting or racially insensitive."
However, she told The Current's guest host David Common that "at a certain point, you've got to call a spade a spade — and what he said was racist."
On Sunday, Trump tweeted about "Democrat Congresswomen," saying they should go back to the "broken and crime-infested places from which they came."
He appeared to be talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
The four women, elected in November, have been vocal critics of both the president, and some policies of their own Democratic party.
All are American citizens and all but one, Omar, were born in the U.S.
Trump repeated the sentiment at a press conference Monday, saying: "If they don't like it here, they can leave."
The congresswomen called his remarks a "disruptive distraction." but while Trump's comments elicited criticism from U.S. Democrats and world leaders, but many Republicans remained silent.
Kohn says the Republicans have instead chosen to "[line] up behind him and ... strain and stretch to justify what he said."
Adi Sathi, chief of staff for the Young Republicans National Federation, thinks criticism of the four politicians is warranted.
He told Common that they are "endorsing socialism," and "policies that are quite frankly scary for the future of our country."
"When we're talking about these women in Congress, who are not necessarily supporting the greatest interests of our country I think they deserve some criticism," he said.
Click 'listen' near the top of this page to hear the full conversation.
Written by Padraig Moran, with files from The Associated Press. Produced by John Chipman, Danielle Carr and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin.