July 15, 2019

The Worst Responses to Trump’s Racist Tweets

No YOU’RE the racist!

Ron Sachs/CNP via Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

While President Donald Trump continues to double down on his racist weekend tweetstorm, his fiercest defenders are contorting themselves to try to explain that, actually, those comments weren’t racist. 

On Sunday, Trump unleashed a string of attacks on four freshman Democratic congresswomen of color—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, collectively known as “The Squad”—urging them to “go back” to the “crime infested” countries they came from. (Only one of them, Omar, was born abroad.) It immediately sparked outrage from all over the world, uniting Democrats (whose very public feud was the original source of Trump’s tweets) and causing #RacistInChief to trend on Twitter. 

Trump has since doubled down on his tweets, saying that he doesn’t need to apologize for anything and that, actually, he deserves an apology from the congresswomen he attacked. And his people have his back. Here’s a roundup of some of the worst defenses of Trump’s tweets: 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): On Fox & Friends, Graham defended the president by calling Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of The Squad anti-American and anti-Semitic communists. (Trump quote-tweeted Graham’s comments shortly after they aired.) 

Trump 2020 campaign deputy communications director Matt Wolking: Wolking emphasized that the president said that the congresswomen should “come back” after telling them to “go back” to the countries they came from, and anyone who doesn’t include that coda is a liar: 

Acting US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli: Asked by CNN on Monday morning if he thought the tweets were racist, Cuccinelli claimed he hadn’t seen the tweets yet: 

Except that on Sunday, he was just on CNN, where he was read the tweets: 

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.): Harris told a reporter that Trump’s tweets “obviously weren’t racist” because the president was telling the congresswomen to go back to their home districts, not countries:

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.): Blunt also backed the president, but skirted the question of racism and instead attacked the Democratic Party in general:

Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence: Short went on to Fox News to let viewers know that Trump can’t have “racist motives” because he appointed Elaine Chao, who is Asian American, as his transportation secretary: 

Brit Hume: Then there’s this academic argument from Fox News’ Hume that Trump’s tweets don’t meet the “standard definition” of racist, so everyone should stop using that word: 

He then cited Merriam-Webster’s definition of racism… 

…but neglected to mention the other three definitions: 

Bill Mitchell: The worst defense came from Mitchell, a right-wing radio host, who argued that Trump’s tweets weren’t racist, and you’re racist for thinking that:  

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate