WASHINGTON _ While Democrats were united in their condemnation of President Donald Trump's call for four members of Congress to "go back" to "the crime infested countries from which they came," nearly no Republicans had publicly rebuked the president a day after his Sunday tirade.
On the Republican side of the aisle, condemnations of Trump for calling four of their colleagues unworthy to serve in Congress because of their non-European heritage were slow to materialize. Even as conservative pundits decried the president's targeting of four progressive lawmakers _ Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan _ as an ugly attack rooted in racism, not a political critique.
By Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern's account, Republican lawmakers condemn the president's words in private, even as they hesitate to in public.
"Cowards," the House Rules Committee chairman said of his GOP colleagues in a tweet Sunday.
While it is unclear what motivated the president's vitriol, the coalition of progressive freshman known as the "squad" has become a favorite target of the Republican Party. The diatribe follows a similar line of attack Fox News host Tucker Carlson aimed at Omar last week. And the campaign arm of House Republicans, the National Republican Campaign Committee, launched a site Monday that hopes to tarnish Democrats in competitive districts by aligning them with the "squad," Politico reported.
Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland called for a "strong bipartisan rebuke" of the president's comments. But that hasn't happened.
Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas who has supports a barrier wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and held up billions in disaster aid earlier this year in a call for more funding for the agency that detains migrant children, called the tweets "wrong."
But other Republicans have remained mum, even as Democrats' outraged calls for them to speak out pile up.
