WASHINGTON _ Missouri Rep. Jason Smith said Friday he regretted yelling "go back to Puerto Rico" to Democrats on the House floor on Thursday, and he has made amends with a California congressman who initially took it as a racial slur.
Smith, a member of the House Republican leadership, said he meant to refer to a group of Democrats who went on a congressional trip to Puerto Rico last weekend, as the partial shutdown of the government dragged into its fourth week. Conservative media this week was bombarded with images of Democrats on that trip, including one photo of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on a beach.
But Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., took Smith's remarks as directed at him. He had organized the trip for about 30 congressional Democrats, and he said he remembered similar "go back to Puerto Rico" comments while growing up in Pacoima, Calif.
Politico, which had a reporter witness what Smith called his "outburst," said it came as groups of Republicans and Democrats were taunting one another on the House floor about the shutdown, which will enter its fifth week at midnight. It came during a tense debate over yet another Democrat-forced vote to re-open the government, part of a parade of bills that the Republican-controlled Senate has refused to take up, in deference to Trump's hard-line position.
Smith, the House Republican conference secretary, immediately tried to smooth it over.
"I talked to Tony to make sure he knew it was not directed at any individual, or him, and that it was directed at all Democrats who were vacationing in Puerto Rico," Smith told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch after speaking to Missourians attending Friday's Right to Life rally on the National Mall. "He had taken great offense. He had planned that trip to Puerto Rico, which I didn't know. And so I told him that the outburst was unacceptable on the floor."
Smith continued: "I should not have done it, the outburst on the floor. It was a reaction to them vacationing while the government was shut down. I was up here last weekend working with (Republican House Leader) Kevin McCarthy and everyone else, trying to come up with a plan" to end the shutdown.
There is no sign of that ending, with House Democrats and President Donald Trump dug in on their respective positions on Trump's call for a wall on the border with Mexico and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition to it.
But there was at least some common ground identified between Smith and Cardenas. Cardenas said he and Smith resolved to get to know one another better when the House returns to session on Tuesday.
"I told him I look forward to having a nice and respectful conversation when we return to D.C. on Tuesday," Cardenas said. "We agreed that we should get to know each other better. I appreciate his call and our future relationship. There is a saying that I was taught by my parents, 'De todo lo malo, siempre sale algo bueno,' which in English means, 'From everything bad, something good will come of it.'"
