US politicians have voiced disgust and alarm after a rally crowd responded to Donald Trump’s racist attacks on congresswoman Ilhan Omar with chants of “send her back”.
Democrats warned the president was “fuelling and feeding off hate” and “stoking the most despicable and disturbing currents in our society” by vilifying Ms Omar, a Somali refugee who arrived in the US as a child nearly three decades ago.
Senator Bernie Sanders said Mr Trump was “the most dangerous president in the history of our country,” while fellow 2020 election hopeful Elizabeth Warren called for him to face impeachment.
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His tweet comes against a backdrop of protests against Puerto Rico's governor, Ricardo Rossello, who is being urged to resign over sexist and homophobic texts.
Some of those messages included slurs about San Juan's mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz, who has been an outspoken critic of both Rossello and Trump.
There's no mention of the furore over last night's rally in Donald Trump's first tweets of the day.
Instead, he turns to the recent arrest and indictment on murder charges of alleged California gang members to make a point about immigration:
There have been a few more muted Republican murmurings of disapproval over last night's "send her back" chants.
House GOP vice-chair Mark Walker, a North Carolina representative, said he "struggled" with the chant.
He slightly feebly suggests the "phrasing" was "painful to our friends in the minority communities".
Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger is more vehement in his condemnation of the chant, which he says is "ugly, wrong, and would send chills down the spines of our Founding Fathers".
The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee has said there is "no place" for the kind of chants heard at Donald Trump's rally last night.
But Minnesota representative Tom Emmer defended Trump himself, telling reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast "there's not a racist bone in this president's body".
He claimed the president repeatedly telling four Democratic women of colour to "go back" to the "totally broken and crime infested places from which they came" had nothing to do with race or even nationality.
Trump simply meant dissatisfied people could leave the US if they want, he suggested.
"That goes for every one of us. It has nothing to do with your race, your gender or your family history," Emmer insisted.
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US president remains unrepentant over bigoted tirade and says he does not have ‘racist bone’ in his bodyThe most search words on Merriam-Webster's online dictionary during and after Donald Trump's rally last night tell a fairly bleak story:
The Democratic congresswomen who have been the target of Donald Trump's attacks this week were all elected in this year's midterm elections.
Here's a look at the four women of colour who collectively call themselves "the Squad":
Who is the 'squad' that Trump targeted in racist tweets?
'Mr President, the country I ‘come from’, and the country we all swear to, is the United States’Donald Trump's racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen may have led to a wave of condemnation, but Republican strategists believe they could also lead to his re-election.
Terry Sullivan, a frequent Trump critic who managed senator Marco Rubio's 2016 election campaign, said the president was successfully getting to make "these extremely liberal, socialist, foolish congresswomen the face of the Democratic Party".
"What he's doing here is sad, but it's smart politics," he said.
Sylvester Smith, a conservative political consultant, told Sky News the president was "trying to rally his base and he's trying to do what he's always done, which is grab headlines and which he's been very successful at".
He added: "If you look at this tactic from the vantage of Trump the presidential candidate, I believe that long term it's going to be a viable tactic for a successful re-election for him."
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