mexican descent, his proposed muslim ban in response to charlottesville and includes comments about caribbean and african nations that cannot be repeated here on the floor of the senate. whatever the reason, whatever the motivation, the president s comments demand condemnation from all corners of the political spectrum, all corners. but it s become frightly common for many of my republican colleagues to let these moments sail by without saying even a word. republican leadership especially rarely criticizes the president directly, even in a situation like this that so clearly merits it. so i m left to wonder if the silence of many republicans in the wake of president trump s zeenphobic tweets is out of
great to see you in person. it s monday, july 15th. president trump insists his twitter attacks against women of color are not racist. if you hate our country, if you re not happy here, you can leave. and that s what i say all the time. that s what i said in a tweet which i guess some people think is controversial. a lot of people love it by the way. if you re not happy in the u.s., if you re complaining all the time, very simply you can leave. these are people that hate our country. hey, john, they hate our country. they hate it, i think, with a passion. are you okay with people quiet. thinking your tweets are racist, sir? quiet. these are people that if they don t i m asking a question. that if they don t like it here, they can leave. and i don t know who s going to miss them, but i guess some people will. i ll miss you if critics of this country were to leave. his attacks are targeted at
disgusting actions. since the uproar which included this question, are you okay with a racist president republicans? only a handful of republicans have actually come out against the president s words. let s start at the white house where nbc s kristen welker joins me now. kristen, this was not what the president or at least not what was planned for the president to do. it was an event about something else. but clearly from the tweets and then the president s comments. this was on his mind. what s the fallout been since he made these comments this morning? reporter: well, ali, i think you make an important point. the president wanted to talk about these products that were made in america, wanted to talk about the economy. and yet he wound up answering a number of questions about his tweets over the weekend which a number of democrats announce and some republicans have come forward and said were in fact racist. so president trump digging in, insisting there was nothing wrong with say
congresswomen of color should go back to where they came from, most born in the u.s. with the exception of one. they re all u.s. citizens. so he has been on defense with this, ali. and so have senior administration officials. look, i was just in a briefing with secretary mnuchin. he wanted to talk about bitcoins. but what was the focus of so many of the questions that he got? so many of the questions focused on these tweets from over the weekend. so he was forced to defend the president saying, look, he has no problem with it. he understood what president trump meant. mark earlier today, a senior official who works with the vice president also on defense forced to defend these comments and to say, look, president trump does have people of color working in his administration, but of course we pressed him on that point and said what does that have to do with the president s tweets? so the fallout deepening by the hour, ali. and you do have republicans coming forward and saying, look, the