Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren denounced the president after rally erupted into chants of ‘send her back’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Democrats have rushed to condemn Donald Trump after his supporters erupted into chants of “send her back” at the mention of Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of the targets of the president’s recent racist tweets.

Presidential candidates and senior members of Congress called the chant at a Trump rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night “despicable” and “vile”. Some expressed fears for Omar’s safety.

Trump used the 2020 election campaign rally in Greenville to attack Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – calling them “hate-filled extremists”.

The group, which calls itself “the Squad”, has been the focus of racist attacks by Trump this week, kickstarted by tweets posted on Sunday in which he said the lawmakers, all women of color, should “go back” to other countries.

“We have said this president is racist. We have condemned his racist remarks,” Omar told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday. She added of Trump: “I believe he is fascist.”

“The president put millions of Americans in danger last night,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Thursday. “His rhetoric is endangering lots of people. This is not just about threats to individual members of Congress, but it is about creating a volatile environment in this country through violent rhetoric that puts anyone, like Ilhan, anyone who believes in the rights of all people, in danger. And I think that he has a responsibility for that environment.”

The 2020 presidential candidate and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was one of the first to offer his support to Omar, accusing the president of “stoking the most despicable and disturbing currents in our society” and called him the “most dangerous president in the history of our country”.

The California senator and 2020 Democratic candidate Kamala Harris labeled the behavior as vile, cowardly and racist.

Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) It’s vile.

It’s cowardly.

It’s xenophobic.

It’s racist.

It defiles the office of the President.

And I won't share it here.



It’s time to get Trump out of office and unite the country.

The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who is also a leading 2020 Democratic candidate, said impeachment proceedings against Trump must begin.

“He’s trying to divide us and distract from his own crimes, and from his deeply unpopular agenda of letting the wealthy and well-connected rip off the country. We must do more,” Warren said.

But Trump attempted to distance himself from the chant on Thursday, saying he “was not happy” with the phrase, which was reminiscent of the “lock her up” rallying cry against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

The president said he thought he ended the chant at the rally, saying “I felt badly about it.” But video shows him pausing his remarks and not admonishing his supporters. He added he “would certainly try” to stop the chant in future.

Omar, of Minnesota, arrived in the United States at age 12 as a refugee of war from Somalia and was naturalized as a US citizen as a child. Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley and Tlaib were born in the US.

Omar reacted to the chants with a tweet on Wednesday evening, in which she quoted a poem by Maya Angelou: “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.” She later posted: “I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal.”

Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) 👋🏽 I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal! pic.twitter.com/W0OvDXGxQX

Some Democrats voiced fears for Omar’s safety following the chants.

“It’s crystal clear to me that her life is in imminent danger,” Bobby Rush, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told Politico. “[Trump] has threatened the safety of a member of Congress. That takes this to a whole different level.”

The civil rights leader Jesse Jackson accused Trump of “putting targets on the backs” of the four congresswomen.

Republican reaction to the moment in Wednesday night’s rally has been much less robust, with only a handful chiming in.

The former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld said he challenged “every Republican to watch Donald Trump’s rally last night, complete with chants of ‘Send her back’, and ask if that is the Party of Lincoln and Reagan we signed up for”.

Weld, who is mounting a highly improbable primary challenge against Trump for the Republican nomination for president ahead of the 2020 election, continued: “We are in a fight for the soul of the GOP, and silence is not an option.”

The Fox News host Laura Ingram chided the media for “conjured up” outrage over the chant and for “fram[ing] the entire rally around this one section of the crowd’s reaction”.

Meanwhile, leading British politicians including Jeremy Corbyn and London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, were among thousands to sign a letter of support for the Squad created by the anti-racist charity Hope Not Hate. The letter described the four US congresswomen as “the best of America”, and condemns Trump’s “blatant, unashamed racism”.

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Going after the four Democratic congresswomen one by one, a combative Trump turned his campaign rally into an extended dissection of their liberal views.

All of the women are progressives within the Democratic party, and advocate for left-leaning policies which Trump has caricatured as “socialist” and un-American.

“Tonight I have a suggestion for the hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down,” Trump told the crowd in North Carolina, a swing state he won in 2016 and wants to claim again in 2020. “They never have anything good to say. That’s why I say: ‘Hey if you don’t like it, let ’em leave, let ’em leave.’”

Eager to rile up his base with the some of the same kind of rhetoric he targeted at minorities and women in 2016, Trump declared on Wednesday night: “I think in some cases they hate our country.”

Hours before Trump’s rally on Wednesday, the US House of Representatives killed an attempt to impeach Trump, with 137 Democrats joining Republicans to table a vote on articles of impeachment brought by the Texas congressman Al Green.

“Tabling” the impeachment articles means they are, in effect, dead. Ninety-five Democrats voted to advance the impeachment resolution, which blasted Trump for bringing “disgrace” on the presidency by issuing racist tweets last Sunday.

Many Democrats said they agreed with the sentiment, but the caucus followed the lead of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who said multiple investigations into the president, his associates and their activities should play out before impeachment could be considered.

The vote provided an early snapshot of just how divided Democrats are over ousting Trump, as the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns heat up.

The question has split the Democratic caucus between the progressive wing, which has called for it forcefully, and the leadership, which has cautioned that impeachment could backfire. Some Democratic strategists think impeaching Trump could galvanize Republicans and increase his chances of re-election.

• This article was amended on 19 July 2019. An earlier version said Ilhan Omar arrived in the US at the age of eight. She actually arrived at the age of 12.