The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to condemn President Donald Trump for his so-called “racist comments” made against four minority Democratic congresswomen in another attempt to criticize and shame the president and his Congressional allies.
Clearly split between party lines, the 240-187 vote was fueled by outraged Democrats due to Trump’s controversial messages he sent via his Twitter account. The President told the group of congresswomen on Sunday to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came,” which was not well-received by the congresswomen he addressed, the Democratic Party, one independent, and even four Republicans.
The four congresswomen – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – are U.S. citizens, three of which were born in the United States.
Since the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives, they quickly passed the resolution on Tuesday evening, which indicated that the House “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”
After the House comments, Trump made a late-night social media post said in response: “So great to see how unified the Republican Party was on today’s vote concerning statements I made about four Democrat Congresswomen. If you really want to see statements, look at the horrible things they said about our Country, Israel, and much more.”
Trump has been accused of attacking the four outspoken congresswomen as an attempt to divide Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, firmly defended the women, even though she has found it difficult at times to work with these newcomers in her caucus.
“These comments from the White House are disgraceful and disgusting and these comments are racist,” Pelosi said. “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets.”
Not everyone applauded Pelosi’s efforts to condemn Trump’s comments, as Republicans argued that she went too far and that the Speaker broke debate rules.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy criticized Pelosi’s remarks indicating that it upset the “order and decency” of the chamber: “Today is the day that historians will write about.”
Other Republicans, such as Tom McClintock of California, defended Trump’s comments and said the president was simply remarking on the patriotism of the congresswomen, not their race.
“I wish the president were more temperate in the words he sometimes uses and I agree that the tone of his recent remarks was unnecessarily provocative. But his central point is irrefutable,” McClintock said.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that he thought “everybody ought to tone down their rhetoric.” He also said, “The president is not a racist and I think the tone of all of this is not good for the country, but it’s coming from all different ideological points of view.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week indicated that Trump received virtually no political damage from his controversial comments, but instead saw support among Republicans make a slight increase.
