US Representative Ilhan Omar on Thursday branded US President Donald Trump a “fascist” as Trump sought to distance himself from mocking chants of “send her back” directed at the Somalia-born lawmaker by his supporters.
“We have said this president is racist, we have condemned his racist remarks,” said Omar, one of two Muslim women in the US Congress. “I believe he is fascist.”
Chants of “send her back” broke out at Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Wednesday night when he attacked Omar and three other ethnic-minority female Democratics known as the “Squad.”
Photo: AP
Omar on Thursday received a very different reception when she returned home to Minnesota and was greeted by crowds of supporters at the airport.
The president’s “nightmare is seeing a Somali immigrant refugee rise to Congress,” she said through a megaphone, to shouts of support. “We are going to continue to be a nightmare to this president, because his policies are a nightmare to us.”
Trump on Thursday said to reporters in the Oval Office that there was “great energy” at his earlier rally, but he was not pleased by the taunts.
“I was not happy when I heard that chant,” he said. “I didn’t like that they did it and I started speaking quickly.”
However, television footage showed that Trump let the chant continue for more than 10 seconds before he resumed speaking.
In a rare move, the Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives on Tuesday rebuked Trump for “racist comments” after he said the four should “go back” to their nations of origin if they are not happy in the US, but he made it clear at the rally that without a Democratic presidential candidate to focus on yet, he plans to make inflammatory attacks on Omar and her three fellow left-leaning Democrats a centerpiece of his re-election strategy.
The first-term lawmakers — all but one of whom, Omar, were born in the US — are of Hispanic, Arabic, Somalian and African-American descent.
To the delight of his thousands of supporters in Greenville, Trump described Omar and the other three as “left-wing ideologues [who] see our nation as a force of evil.”
“A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American Dream — frankly the destruction of our country,” Trump said.
The crowd responded to his attacks with cries of “send her back,” reminiscent of the “lock her up” chants directed in 2016 at Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Some Republicans have urged Trump to tone down the rhetoric, but the president clearly believes — despite the risk of inflaming racial tensions and widening the partisan divide — that he has latched on to a winning strategy.
Trump tapped into grievances among white blue-collar and rural Americans to eke out a narrow victory in 2016 and he is hoping to do the same again next year.
“He’s rallying his base,” said Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown University. “He thinks this is a way to get them riled up now.”
Trump won 57 percent of white voters in 2016, while Clinton won 37 percent.
About 70 percent of the electorate next year is expected to be white. African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities account for the rest and tend to vote Democrat.
Several of the Democratic presidential hopefuls condemned Trump’s remarks.
“It’s vile. It’s cowardly. It’s xenophobic. It’s racist,” US Senator Kamala Harris said.
“These members of Congress — children of immigrants, just like so many of us — are an example of exactly what makes America great,” former US vice president Joe Biden said.
Trump’s remarks also came in for criticism from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called them “hurtful,” and European Council President Donald Tusk, who said the comments were “totally unacceptable.”
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS