to countries they came from. joining me now is congresswoman, democrat of illinois. thank you for being back on the show. . thank you, hallie. . so you are, congressman, a u.s. citizen born in india but came to this country as a baby. . yes. have you ever been told to go back to your country? i have. and actually, 30% of my constituents were actually born in a foreign country. a lot of them in recent years since trump was elected president heard similar refrains. that s why it is all the more shocking and alarming that the president would tweet similar things from his account. the defense we have seen from white house officials this morning that the president was not using this racist trope, what do you make of that? i think that s ridiculous. it s absurd.
himself went on to abuse, assault and rape several other women in the park after, after this heinous crime was committed, and he committed it. part of what happened with central park five at the time, even at the time was the notion of a bunch of african-american kids in the park, wilding, that wilding was a thing that happened in central park, and this was an example. it was a racist trope at the time. created by the police in some ways. the fact that trump in 2016 was on the campaign trail saying that the central park five who had been exonerated by dna years before, stood by the notion they should have gotten the death penalty and now today at the white house, yesterday at the white house, not only still defending that position but defending it with the language that he used around charleston, there are fine people on both sides of this argument. charlottesville.
president, i think the president was trying to put his two cents in about why a lot of supporters believe roseanne barr was not given the same treatment that people on the other side of the aisle have been like we went through them before with with miss sanders, but i don t think that he really is in a spot right now to talk about this. i got to believe that none of us like or appreciated what roseanne barr did. it s a horrible mistake and i think, you know, people view it as this whole thing about gorillas, it s a trope. it s been around for a long time. it s a racist trope. i ve seen people taken down by this in the past. i ve worked with executives in my communications consultant capacity especially actually with a local comedian and television personality. who did something here in buffalo very similar and three years later, his career has not