New Jersey Sen. Cory Bookeron Monday said President Donald Trump is “ripping at the fabric of our country for his own political gain” in response to the President’s racist language attacking four progressive congresswomen.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said Trump is “literally fanning the flames of racial violence,” and that the President’s language is “clearly bigoted, vile, dangerous,” in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.”
“This is a President who is trafficking in the same kind of toxic tropes that white supremacists use on their platforms,” Booker told Tapper.
The New Jersey senator also said it is “driving deep hurt and divisions in our country” and that the person occupying the White House “should be a uniter, should bring our country together.”
“We’ve seen this brand of demagoguery and hatred before and they have always been taken down,” Booker said, adding, “This is not who we are.”
On Monday, Trump doubled down on his racist attacks on a group of Democratic congresswomen, insisting they leave the United States if they continue complaining about his policies.
Trump on Sunday used racist language to attack the representatives, all women of color, implying they weren’t American and suggesting they “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Multiple 2020 Democratic presidential candidates rebuked Trump’s tweets, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would formally introduce a motion to reject Trump’s comments.
Trump himself denied his attacks on the congresswomen were racist.
The group of Democrats — Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — have been outspoken against Trump’s immigration policies and last week condemned the conditions at border detention facilities.
Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley are natural-born US citizens. Omar was born in Somalia and immigrated to the US when she was young. Omar became a citizen in 2000 when she was 17 years old, according to The New York Times.
