President Donald Trump continues to actively rush into fanning flames of intense division across the United States. This week during remarks to the conservative young people’s organization Turning Point USA, he derided progressive Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib as a “vicious crazed lunatic” after video surfaced and circulated of her protesting an event Trump spoke at in 2016. Has Trump ever met one of his supporters? What about the masses of right-wingers who have violently demonstrated in favor of their nationalist onslaught? Oh yeah, Trump thinks those people constitute “very fine people,” he shared after violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, but when a woman of color stages a nonviolent demonstration, suddenly he cares.
Trump told the Turning Point USA crowd:
‘I watched just this morning this Tlaib from Michigan. There is no way she stands for the values of the people of Michigan. But I watched her this morning. She’s vicious. She’s like a crazed lunatic. She starts screaming, and this is not a sane person, folks, when you look at that. And this is what we’re up against.’
Watch:
Pres. Trump: “I watched just this morning this Tlaib from Michigan, right… There is no way she stands for the values of the people of Michigan. But I watched her this morning. She’s vicious. She’s like a crazed lunatic.” https://t.co/G1g7XxPb98 pic.twitter.com/P6rPRU2v1H
— The Hill (@thehill) July 23, 2019
What would he call the crowds of people who started chanting “Send her back!” at a recent rally of his, targeting progressive Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar? Oh yeah, he already said that they’re great patriots who love this country. So again, it’s only when women of color and those generally on the other side of the political spectrum from him take up protesting that Trump suddenly starts caring about it. He’s gone so far in the past that although this is obviously just another one of the president’s pipe dreams considering precedent, in an interview with the Daily Caller he suggested making protesting illegal in the United States across the board. He really can’t take people disagreeing with him.
What’s great is that in video that’s circulated of Tlaib challenging Trump when he was still just a presidential candidate, one of the eventual president’s supporters yelled for her to “get a job!” In the time since, she has become a member of Congress and is helping lead a nationally recognized challenge to Trumpism, consistently and directly calling for his impeachment.
Tlaib’s press secretary responded to the video recirculating by sharing that the Congresswoman had asserted to Trump at the time that “our children deserve better than the hateful, racist rhetoric” he was and is still spewing, and also asked him if he ever even read the Constitution. They added:
‘It is abundantly clear in his actions as President that he has not — or doesn’t care to abide it.’
Trump has directly challenged Tlaib well before this video and considering his crowds’ receptiveness to his remarks, likely will again. He demanded not too long ago that Tlaib and some of her progressive colleagues in Congress including Omar and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) “go back where they came from” rather than criticize his administration. In the time since, the U.S. House has voted to condemn Trump’s remarks as racist, with the support of only four Republicans.
Featured Image via screenshot
