“You can leave” – Those were the exact offensive words President Donald Trump used against four Democrats he targeted with racial invective on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters in a video we sighted at the White House on Monday, Trump said:
“‘If you’re not happy here, then you can leave.”
Earlier, the president accused the congresswomen of “spewing” “racist hatred” – precisely the offence of which he has been widely accused.
The president wrote:
“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. So many people are angry at them [and] their horrible [and] disgusting actions!”
He added:
“If Democrats want to unite around the foul language [and] racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular [and] unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
The tweets reflected others Trump sent on Sunday amid the storm created by his initial demand that the unnamed congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime[-]infested places from which they came”.
The targets of Trump’s ire were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York; Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan; Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts; and Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota.