WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump stepped up his xenophobic attacks on progressive Democratic congresswomen on Monday, prompting denunciations of racism from Democrats and mostly awkward silence in the Republican camp.
A day after saying the Democratic lawmakers should "go back" to the countries they came from, Trump doubled down with another series of provocative race-baiting tweets.
Trump's move appeared to be aimed at galvanizing his mostly white electoral base ahead of the 2020 presidential vote while also stoking divisions among his political opponents.
"With his deliberate, racist outburst, @realDonaldTrump wants to raise the profile of his targets, drive Dems to defend them and make them emblematic of the entire party," said David Axelrod, who served as chief strategist for Barack Obama's two White House campaigns.
"It's a cold, hard strategy," Axelrod said on Twitter. "Fasten your seatbelts, it will only get worse as the election approaches."
In his initial Twitter attack on Sunday, Trump, who before becoming president pushed the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama was not born on US soil, said the congresswomen came from corrupt, poorly managed countries to which they should return.
"Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done," Trump said.
Trump did not identify them by name but he was clearly referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is of Puerto Rican origin, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is of Somali origin, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who is African-American.
Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley were all born in the United States while Omar came to the United States from war-torn Somalia when she was a child.
Trump's tweets on Sunday drew a firestorm of criticism from Democrats but he went on the offensive on the messaging platform again on Monday.
"When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said," Trump said. "So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions.
"If Democrats want to unite around the foul language & racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular & unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out."
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, has had a tenuous relationship with the four left-leaning first-term congresswomen but she jumped to their defense.
"When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to 'Make American Great Again' has always been about making America white again," Pelosi said.
- 'White supremacists' -
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Ocasio-Cortez, known as AOC, tweeted that "the President's words yday, telling four American Congresswomen of color 'go back to your own country' is hallmark language of white supremacists.
"Trump feels comfortable leading the GOP into outright racism, and that should concern all Americans."
"Until Republican officials denounce yesterday's explicitly racist statements (which should be easy!), we sadly have no choice but to assume they condone it," she added.
Representative Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, also condemned Trump's fellow Republicans for their silence.
"Damning and deafening silence from the @HouseGOP as the Birther In Chief makes racist attacks on women of color who serve with us in Congress," Beyer said.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was one of the few Republicans to speak out publicly about Trump's comments.
"Aim higher. They are American citizens. Take on their policies," Graham said on "Fox & Friends."
At the same time, Graham joined in on Trump's attacks.
"We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists," he said. "They're anti-Semitic. They're anti-America."
While other Republicans had little to say, there was a reaction from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the president's tweets.
"Her view is that the language which was used to refer to the women was completely unacceptable," May's spokesman told reporters.
Trump and May have had a rocky relationship, which took a turn for the worse last week following the leak of diplomatic British cables highly critical of his presidency.
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