In a series of tweets posted last night, the US President Donald Trump appeared to call out four Congresswomen widely presumed in the press to be Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. Not mentioning anyone by their names but instead referring to them as “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen”, Trump ordered them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar attending a news conference to call on Congress “to cut funding for President Trump’s deportation force.” Photo: Getty
His tweets read: “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.”
“These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Though it is not explicitly clear to whom Trump was referring, the tweets follow his recent claims that the Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez and Omar were among the Democrats being “disrespectful” to the White House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. According to the Independent, Trump lashed out at the Congresswomen while speaking to reporters outside the White House, saying he “doesn’t even know where they came from.”
Mentioning the Somali-American politician he continued to say, “I’m looking at this Omar from Minnesota and if one half of the things they’re saying about her are true she shouldn’t even be in office.”
Tlaib, who is one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress responded to Trump’s tweets last night saying, “Want a response to a lawless & complete failure of a President? He is the crisis. His dangerous ideology is the crisis. He needs to be impeached.”
Rashida Tlaib tearing up at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on The Trump Administration’s Child Separation Policy. Photo: Getty
Omar too addressed Trump directly by tweeting, “Mr. President, [as] members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States. Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen”. “You are stoking white nationalism bc you are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda,” she continued.
Out of the four Congresswomen involved, Omar is the only representative who is not originally from the US and has an ongoing feud with the President. The Somali-born Democrat, who grew up in a Kenyan refugee camp before fleeing to America aged 12, made history as the first African refugee and hijab-wearing woman to serve in Congress. Speaking to Vogue Arabia earlier this year about living in Trump’s America Omar revealed that “It’s challenging.”
“It’s an everyday assault. Every day, a part of your identity is threatened, demonized, and vilified. Trump is tapping into an ugly part of our society and freeing its ugliness. It’s been a challenge to try to figure out how to continue the inclusion; how to show up every day and make sure that people who identify with all the marginalized identities I carry, feel represented. It’s transitioning from the idea of constantly resisting to insisting in upholding the values we share – that this is a society that was built on the idea that you could start anew. And what that celebrates is immigrant heritage.”
Read Next: Ilhan Omar: “To Me, the Hijab Means Power, Liberation, Beauty, and Resistance”
