Unbowed by criticism of his racially infused tweets, President Donald Trump is telling members of Congress: "If you hate our country... you can leave."
Trump was responding to furor over his weekend tweets saying that four Democratic congresswomen of color should go back to the "broken and crime infested" countries they came from.
That's despite the fact that all of the women are American citizens and three were born in the U.S.
Trump said Monday at the White House, "If you're not happy in the U.S., if you're complaining all the time, you can leave, you can leave right now."
Democrats condemned Trump's tweets as racist and divisive.
But Trump says that "a lot of people love" what he said.
President Trump defends his tweets attacking Democratic congresswomen of color: "If you're not happy here, then you can leave" https://t.co/fJsx8emrWk pic.twitter.com/tIwdO1dzfw
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 15, 2019
During the "Made in America" event, the president insisted the U.S. has to defend its borders, and will do so and build a wall, despite any legal challenges.
"The philosophy of my administration is simple if we can build it grow it or make it in the United States, we will," the president said.
Before the event he was asked, "Do you think the tweets were racist?"
"Not at all. Not at all. If somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn't want to be in our country, [in audible], - let me tell you, if you look at her statements on Al Qaeda, did you see her statements on Al Qaeda? When you look at her statements about people - but what I'm going to do is I'm going to speak from right over here because there's so many people here and this is really about economic development and how well our country is doing, but I'm going to discuss the issues."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA): "Despite [Pres. Trump's] attempts to marginalize us & silence us, please know that we are more than 4 people. We ran on a mandate to advocate & represent those ignored, left out & left behind. Our squad is big." https://t.co/7FfSzCLKfr pic.twitter.com/3mxgzeki3L
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) July 15, 2019
(CBS News, CNN, The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. 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....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
....it is done. 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
