After Donald Trump lied and told reporters that the four Congresswomen who were the target of his racist tweets over the weekend hated this country and should leave, those fierce Congresswomen held a press conference where they gave everyone a lesson -- especially reporters -- in how to deal with his rhetoric.
In the 20-minute or so press conference, they repeatedly called for his impeachment and refused to rise to his bait. The press seemed to keep wanting to go in that direction, but they would not do it.
Rep. Ilhan Omar responded to Trump's false claim that she was "a communist and praised Al Qaeda" this way:
You might have noticed how when he said go back to where you came from there was an uproar through the -- through all of our communities because every single person who is brown and black at some point in their life in this country heard that. Now, when he makes the comment, I know that every single Muslim who has lived in this country and across the world has heard that comment. And so I will not dignify it with an answer because I know that every single slam -- every single person who is hateful, who is driven by an ideology of othering as this president is, rejoices in us responding to that and us defending ourselves. I do not expect every time there is a white supremacist who attacks or there is a white man who kills in a school or in a movie theater, or in -- in a mosque, or in a synagogue, I don't expect my white community members to respond on whether they love that person or not. And so I think it is beyond time, it is beyond time to ask Muslims to condemn terrorists. We are no longer going to allow the dignification of such ridiculous -- ridiculous statements.
And again, Rep. Omar and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez hammered home how to answer when the press asks whether Trump's racist comments were their fault. When a reporter asks whether their controversial comments gave him "firepower" to turn them back around, these two fierce women took that reporter to school:
OMAR: Every single statement that we make is from a place of extreme love for every single person in this country. It is part of the mandate of why we ran for office and why we got elected. Every single person wants to make sure that they have people in the halls of congress that is fighting to make sure that they have health care, that they have an education that is suitable in the United States, that they have access to proper roads and bridges, that they have access to clean water and clean air, and every single person here in the united states knows that we are fighting every single day to create a more perfect union and to fight on their behalf. Now when people say if you say a negative thing about the policies in this country you hate this country. To me, it sort of speaks to the hypocrisy and Alex and I were talking about this, when this president ran and until today, he talked about everything that was wrong in this country. And how he was going to make it great.
And so for him to condemn us and to say we are unAmerican for wanting to work hard to make this country be the country we all deserve to live in, it is complete hypocrisy.
AOC: Absolutely. And I don't think it would have changed anything. Because first of all he made statements that were blatantly untrue. So whether he was citing comments or not citing comments if he didn't have what he wanted to say he would make it up.
This president operates in complete bad faith. He doesn't operate in good faith. And so that is one thing. But second to the previous question as well, weak minds and leaders challenge loyalty to our country in order to avoid challenging and debating the policy. This president does not know how to make the argument that Americans do not deserve health care. He does not know how to defend his policies. So what he does is attack us personally.
And that is what this is all about. He can't look a child in the face and he can't justify why this country is throwing them in cages. So instead, he tells us that I should go back to the great borough of the Bronx and make it better and that's what I'm here to do.
Bookmark this post and share it every time there's another attack from the "president" toward people of color. This is how we win. Every single time.
