After Sen. Lindsey Graham went on Fox News Monday morning to slur her and some of her fellow members of Congress as “anti-Semitic” and “anti-American,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clapped back on—where else—Twitter, calling out the South Carolina Republican for his comments.
During Graham’s appearance on “Fox and Friends,” one of President Donald Trump’s favorite shows, the senator called Ocasio-Cortez and fellow members of “The Squad” Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) “communists” who “hate Israel” and America. Graham derided the quartet for about half a minute before piously expressing his hope that the president would rise above personal attacks and focus on policy.
“I see Lindsey Graham’s biggest issue with Trump’s racism is that it doesn’t go far enough,” tweeted Ocasio-Cortez. “Graham wants to bring back 1950s McCarthyism, too.”
“GOP is doing this because they have no plan for our future,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “We’re the ones fighting for healthcare, education, good jobs, and they got nothing.”
Activist Jordan Uhl expressed his bemusement over Graham’s 180 on Trump in the last four years.
“Lindsey Graham went from telling Trump to ‘go to hell’ and calling him a jackass in 2015 to calling progressive women of color ‘communists’ and ‘anti-America,'” tweeted Uhl.
The president has amped up his attacks on The Squad in recent days, taking up the critiques leveled against the foursome by House Democratic leaders—on which Common Dreams reported—from the weekend to the next level. On Sunday, Trump implied the members of The Squad were from other countries (only Omar, who was born in Somalia, is not a native-born American) and demanded they “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
The president doubled down on those comments Monday in remarks to reporters, saying that the four “are people who in my opinion hate our country.”
“All I’m saying is, if they’re not happy here, they can leave,” the president added.
That was enough for Pelosi to send a letter to her colleagues urging unity in the face of Trump’s racism.
“The House cannot allow the president’s characterization of immigrants to our country to stand,” wrote Pelosi. “Our Republican colleagues must join us in condemning the president’s xenophobic tweets.”
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