House votes to condemn Trump’s racist tweets

Washington CNN — The House voted on Tuesday night to condemn racist language from President Donald Trump, capping off a tumultuous couple of hours on Capitol Hill including a brief time in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was barred from speaking in the chamber. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, one of the congresswomen Trump attacked, said Tuesday’s vote sent a message to young kids who “are wrestling with the weight of those words now coming from the President, that we hear them, we see them and we never will allow anybody to tell them that this isn’t their country.” The resolution denounced the President for racist comments targeting four Democratic congresswomen of color, but tensions surrounding the procedural fight over Pelosi’s language halted floor action for a heated debate for more than an hour while her words were deliberated. “I’m proud of the attention has been called to it because what the President said was completely inappropriate against our colleagues but not just against them but against so many people in our country and he said to them ‘go back to where you came from.’” Members have to be careful with how they debate this condemnation resolution because they’re not allowed to attack the personalities or character of members, senators, or the President on the House floor. … We spend the day waiting on the next tweet and I think we’re doing great damage to this republic.” Trump has faced intense backlash, including from some congressional Republicans, after suggesting in a series of tweets over the weekend that the four Democratic progressive women known on Capitol Hill as “The Squad” should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” The President’s tweets did not explicitly mention the lawmakers by name, but it was clear who Trump was referring to and his comments came on the heels of a public clash between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the four lawmakers, which includes Omar as well as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. At a press conference on Monday, Omar condemned the President’s words as “a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States of House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color.” Omar went on to say, “This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it’s happening on national TV, and now it’s reached the White House garden.” This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday.