Trump, Dems clash over ‘racist’ tweets

Washington, July 16 

A livid Democratic Party has introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives, condemning the “racist” tweets of President Donald Trump against four non-white women lawmakers from the Opposition party. 

Trump sparked a furore on Sunday when he said the women lawmakers “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and they should go home.

Though Trump did not explicitly name Democrat Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley in his initial Twitter tirade on Sunday, the context made a clear link to the four Democrat women, who are known as The Squad. Three of the women were born in the US and one, Omar, was born in Somalia but came to the US as a child.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday said Republican lawmakers “must join” Democrats in “condemning the President’s xenophobic tweets” and urged Democrats to support a resolution put forward by House Democratic lawmakers.

“The House cannot allow the President’s characterisation of immigrants to our country to stand. Our Republican colleagues must join us in condemning the President’s xenophobic tweets,” Pelosi wrote in a Dear Colleague letter to House Democrats.

But Trump, a Republican, was in no mood to relent. “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” Trump said as he unleashed a series of tweets against four Democratic Congresswomen.

The four women lawmakers held a news conference at the Capitol on Monday to denounce a tweet by the President in which he apparently suggested that they leave the country. “This is a President who has overseen the most corrupt administration in our history,” Omar said.

“To distract from that, he’s launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the US House of Representatives, all of whom are women of colour,” she said. Both Omar and Tlaib repeated their calls for Trump to be impeached. — PTI 

Twitter won’t remove controversial tweets

• Twitter has said it will not remove US President Donald Trump’s controversial tweets telling four Congresswomen to “go back” to their respective home countries
• Twitter said it “won’t be treating President Donald Trump’s recent tweets telling congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their supposed home countries as a violation of its hateful conduct policy”
• It also means Twitter will not put out a notice on Trump’s tweet, as promised earlier this month, even if it violates its policies for posting harmful or vicious content