President Donald Trump praised Republican members of the House of Representatives late July 16 after most refused to vote for a resolution condemning the president’s tweets.
Trump sent missives on July 14 telling “progressive Democratic congresswomen” to go back to their home countries and help fix the “corrupt and inept” governments before returning to the United States to “show us how it is done.”
Democrats accused him of racism, arguing he seemed to be targeting only minorities.
Trump took to Twitter, his favored social media platform, to praise Republicans for mainly distancing themselves from the resolution.
….visible members of the House Democrats, who are now wedded to this bitterness and hate. The Republican vote was 187-4. Wow! Also, this was the first time since 1984 that the Speaker of the House was ruled Out of Order and broke the Rules of the House. Quite a day!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2019
“So great to see how unified the Republican Party was on today’s vote concerning statements I made about four Democrat Congresswomen,” he wrote.
“If you really want to see statements, look at the horrible things they said about our Country, Israel, and much more. They are now the top, most visible members of the House Democrats, who are now wedded to this bitterness and hate.”
Sharing the vote count, Trump then noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) broke House rules.
“The Republican vote was 187-4. Wow! Also, this was the first time since 1984 that the Speaker of the House was ruled Out of Order and broke the Rules of the House. Quite a day!” Trump wrote.
Pelosi was reading a prepared statement in the House chamber when Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) called for her words to be struck from the record, leading to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announcing they did indeed violate the rules of the House.
“The words used by the gentlewoman from California contained an accusation of racist behavior on the part of the president,” Hoyer said. “The words should not be used in debate.”
Pelosi declined to apologize for the remarks, reported The Hill, telling reporters ahead of the vote on whether to strike the remarks: “I stand by my statement. I’m proud of the attention that’s being called to it because what the president said was completely inappropriate against our colleagues, but not just against them, against so many people in our country.”
The vote to strike the remarks from the record failed 190-232. Every Republican voted to strike the remarks. No Democrats did.
The proceedings later moved to vote on approving the resolution condemning Trump for his allegedly “racist comments.”
The resolution passed with 235 votes, including four Republicans, reported NBC. They were Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
There is no room in America for racism, sexism, antisemitism, xenophobia and hate. I voted to condemn the President’s tweets today but I hope that Speaker Pelosi also considers holding members of her own party accountable to the same degree to which she holds the President.
— Rep. Will Hurd (@HurdOnTheHill) July 16, 2019
“There is no room in America for racism, sexism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hate. I voted to condemn the President’s tweets today but I hope that Speaker Pelosi also considers holding members of her own party accountable to the same degree to which she holds the President,” Hurd said in a statement on Twitter.
“Why did it take several weeks for the Speaker to bring a resolution to the floor condemning the blatantly anti-Semitic comments of one of her members (while refraining from mentioning the member directly in the resolution) and only days for her to do the same for the President?” he added, attacking Pelosi.
Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), who recently left the Republican party, also joined Democrats in voting for the resolution.
After the vote, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, saying: “What do you do when the leader of the free world is a racist? What do you do? You file Articles of Impeachment, impeaching the president of the United States of America.”
