Tweet Lindsey Graham encouraged you to aim higher. No, no, he didnt say he just said see, i disagree with lindsey. These are congressmen. What am i supposed to do, wait for senators . No. So i disagree with lindsay on that, that was the only thing. He said aim higher, shoot higher. What am i going to do, wait until we get somebody else in a higher position, Higher Office . These are people that hate our country. Hey, john, they hate our country. They hate it, i think, with a passion. Now, its possible im wrong. The voter will decide. But when i hear the way they talk about our country, when i hear the antisemitic language they use, when i hear the hatred they have for israel and the love they have for enemies like al qaeda, then you know what, i will tell you that i do not believe this is good for the democrat party. Certainly its not the party that ive known over the years. Mr. President , where should they mr. President does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist and that White Nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point . It doesnt concern me because many people agree with me. All im saying, they want to leave, they can leave. Now, it doesnt say leave forever. It says leave if you want. But what it says, and what that john, what that says is if theyre not happy with the United States, if theyre doing nothing but criticizing us all the time, you see these people walking down criticizing the United States, we just hit the highest stock market in history. All of these incredible manufacturers, these are great Business People and employ many people and we have workers with us too. Theyre having the best year they have ever had. Can i say that . Is that a correct statement . And theyre hiring more people than they have ever had an more people are making a good living than they have ever had. We just hit 27,000 plus on the dow. Its the highest stock market has ever been. And you have to go by the election, because the market started going up the day after i won. They like to add all of that tremendous gain, they like to try and give it to obama. The fact is if i would have lost, the stock market would crash. If these people that i watch in those debates ever got their hands on the United States government, 401 k s, the values of your company, Everything Else that we talk about and are so proud of, its down the tubes. People will lose their money. Theyll lose their wealth. Youll have a crash like youve never seen before. And im really good at this stuff, i know what im talking about. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Where should they go, mr. President . Youve been listening here to President Trump. Lets listen again. People came into our country illegally, illegally. Many were felons. Many were convicted of crimes. Many, many were taken out on sunday. You just didnt know about it. In fact i went to i spoke to the head of i. C. E. I spoke to a couple of people. We had many people, it was a very successful day. But you didnt see a lot of it because it was done a lot, youll speak to them. Im not sure they should be telling you, but it was a lot. It wouldnt have to be sunday. Weve been doing this look, we have been removing ms13, theyre monsters. We have been removing ms13 by the thousands during my administration. And i tell my people its much easier to go the other route, but i say focus on the criminals. Focus on the people that are killing people, that are causing crime. Focus on them. Much easier just to go to general population, thats easy. But i dont do it the easy way. Were getting tremendous numbers of criminals. Yesterday, it was just reported to me. I said how did it go yesterday . The truth is it started a number of days before yesterday, but yesterday was very successful. People come into our country illegally and they go out legally. Every person taken out had papers and we had court orders. Okay, thank you. Youve been listening to President Trump there insisting that hes not concerned by people who say that his recent tweets, his recent racist tweets are racist. He said many people agree with me. He says the four congresswomen of color that hes been targeting should leave the u. S. If they dont like it here. Sunday he called for what was clearly these four freshmen congresswomen to return to their home countries. President trump was referring to new yorks alexandria ocasiocortez, Ayanna Pressley from massachusetts, ilhan omar andra she haded rashida tlaib. So interesting to see congresswomen who came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States how our government is to be run. Why dont they go back and help fix the totally broken and criminfested places from which they came. Three of these four women were born in america. Ilhan omar has been an american citizen since she was a teenager. This morning after democrats, including Speaker Pelosi who recently has been at odds with the four came to their defense and called the president racist. Then today the president responded, quote, if democrats want to unite around the foul language and racist hatred spud from the mouths and actions of thesis very unpopular and unrepresentative congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Just moments ago, similarly, he defended himself. What are you talking about in your tweet about going back to their home country . Well, i dont mention i didnt mention names. I didnt do that. But aisle will tell you with our country, and i think everybody in this audience, these are great manufacturers, great workers in our workers too. They brought a lot of their workers here. If youre not happy here, then you can leave. As far as im concerned if you hate our country, if youre not happy here, you can leave. And thats what i say all the time. Thats what i said in a tweet, which i guess some people think is controversial. A lot of people love it, by the way. A lot of people love it. But if youre not happy in the u. S. , if youre complaining all the time, very simply, you can leave. You can leave right now. Come back if you want, dont come back, thats okay too. But if youre not happy, you can leave. Lets go to Boris Sanchez who is at the white house. Tell us more, boris, about this defense. Reporter yeah, brianna. The third annual made in america south lawn of the white house just a few moments ago. President trump with this outburst defending these racist tweets that he sent out yesterday attacking these four progressive congresswomen. He didnt mention their names yesterday. Today he went after ilhan omar. The president saying she is antisemitic, that she hates jews, she hates israel and she puffs her chest out when she talks about al qaeda. The president was also asked about whether he was concerned that some of the language that he uses in these tweets may appeal to White Supremacists, if it may be indicative of some kind of support for their beliefs. The president saying that hes not concerned about any links to white supremacy, essentially denying the fact that he has made many remarks in the past that are racist and blatantly xenophobic. The president then went on to talk about the planned i. C. E. Raids just a couple of weeks ago. He said millions of people would be deported. Today he said that he had spoken with some of the heads in his administration handling these raids and that they would not give an official number to the public of how many people were deported, but ultimately the president going back to this theme of race in his discussions over these four progressive women saying they should leave the United States if they dont like it. Notably the president doesnt say the same thing about other Congress People who have been critical of him and his administration and who often are critical of american policy, people like Bernie Sanders and elizabeth warren, people who he has not told to go back to their countries, brianna. Boris sanchez at the white house, thank you so much. I want to bring in professor and author michael eric dyson, we have Gloria Borger and rachel bade. Michael, first to you. What do you think of what you have been witnessing really since yesterday with the tweets and now the president not really defending himself so much as standing by what he said. He said people agree with him. Right. Well, hes a demented political genius, lets give it to him. He plays to his base and the bases instincts. The xenophobia, the racism, the misogyny of collecting these women together to knock them down, like a kind of political pinata, beating at them. Its ridiculous. Whats even more ridiculous is that we dont hear an outcry from other republicans who know better, who have more humane sensibilities. Who understand that, look, it is a contact sport to be involved in politics, and the president plays them with ultimate panache and hurtful vigor. But end of the day we are all americans. To demonize them the way he did barack obama, the way he called into question kamala harris, the way hes calling into question the citizenship of these people. We can disagree and not portray them as enemies of the state. This is vicious, its deleterious and it calls for the conscience of the Republican Party to come forward and say enough is enough. They are not coming forward. No, no. They are cowards as well. Theres clearly a fear theres clearly a belief on the part of the Republican Party that people, some people, some americans whose votes republicans rely on do agree with the president , as he stated. Hes being partisan here. You said misogyny. Hes being sexist, hes being racist here. It is wrong what he is saying, it is divisive. And yet there seems to be this inability to Say Something. So what do you what do you make of that . Well, what i make of that is that all along we hear the cry, oh, no, everybody who supports donald trump is not racist. Show it. Prove it. If people are afraid to speak out because they fear that that base is the kind of, you know, substrata that supports that party, then youve got to at least come out of the closet, so to speak, and admit these are racist sensibilities. Anybody who protects them, anybody who defends them, anybody who suggests that they are not worthy of immediate reproach and immediate rebuff is in league with and complicit with these kind of racist, sexist, and antiamerican beliefs. This is antipatriotic to me. Its also part of a political strategy. Its clearly orchestrated here that lets look at what has occurred in recent days. Youve had the threats of mass roundups of illegal immigrants. You heard the president just talk about that just now. The president hosted rightwing social media and he thought that was a great success. Youve had the challenge on the Citizenship Question on the census. So this is this doesnt come out of thin air here. This is a president , and you said youve got to hand it to him in his own way, who knows exactly what he is doing. And by challenging these four women, he is saying they represent the Democratic Party. You know, theres a fight in the Democratic Party going on, and you could argue that he inserted himself and sort of stopped that cold, which might be good for the democrats. But he is also trying to say, you know, theyre the leaders of the democratic parties, which of course they are not. And so he knows what hes he knows what hes doing here. See, what you just said is all true. Yeah. But it doesnt absolve us of the necessity to call it for what it is. I agree. It is a political strategy that is racist, that is xenophobic. Theyre not mutually exclusive. And youve got to name every element of that. But it is also unusual not for President Trump, but in politics, this is pretty unusual. This is the kind of thing that normally for anyone else would just be incredibly surprising. This is not this is a strategy, this is racist, this is not something that is within the norm, no matter how much you cite a bunch of data points. But this is still very clearly not within the norm. When i think of republicans, rachel, youre a reporter for the washington post, i think of republicans, some of them are im sure not identifying with what hes saying and yet they dont want to say anything. Yeah, theres definitely this sort of deer in the headlights feeling. The past 24 hours or i guess its less than that now, republicans have been really slow in pushback. We are starting to see some come out just before the show started, senator season collins actually asked President Trump to take down his tweet saying its unacceptable. We saw will hurd from a moderate district in texas saying this is point blank racist and xenophobic. It is not behavior becoming of a president. He called it hurtful and politically divisive. There are some republicans who are starting to speak out but youre not hearing the Republican Leadership. But what does that and what does that say to you, rachel, when you hear those names. Will hurd is in a district where hes the only republican, and its a huge swath of the border, but thats also a purple district. It is. Susan collins is sort of this Old School New england republican that doesnt exist in so many very many places anymore. These are sort of the usual suspects of people who have a leg to stand on politically that can come out and Say Something. It politically benefits them in their district if they push back against the president. Clearly the political calculus is the number one priority for republicans right now. Theres a fear that if you come from a far right district where Everybody Loves the president , that youre going to take heat if you go out there and criticize him. I think what happened this weekend on the democratic side is really interesting because the infighting in the Democratic Party and the house in particular has been absolutely brutal and ugly. We saw one of the squad members on saturday Say Something about how, quote, we dont need any more black faces that dont want to be black voices. She was specifically talking about members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were standing up for pelosi, who they were fighting with. So it was getting really bad. Trumps tweet totally changed everything. Now the conversation is about democrats versus trump. Democrats are uniting. We just learned theres going to be a resolution potentially on the floor this week or next week rebuking President Trump for these tweets over the weekend. The enemy of my enemy turns out to be my friend. The republicans havent named this for what it is. A malady of racial and gender proportions that is quite epic. The point you were making i think is very clear. That usually even this kind of thing crosses the line. Youre going to get some pushback. The inability for republicans to find a spine, to say this is wrong. Susan collins talks about unacceptability. Thats your 3yearold throwing cheerios at the television. Racist is what it is. Misogynistic is what it is, xenophobic is what it is. Weve got to use these words against the viciousness that we see prevailing. And thats 100 . What trump is doing here for the democrats is hes saying, well, if you defend these four women, i dont call them communists. You know, Lindsey Graham calls them communists. Socialists. Maybe theyre communists is what he said. So if you defend them against what i said, that means that you agree with them on everything. Its distorted logic. It is. But you see what hes doing. Absolutely. You see what hes doing. Republicans well, democrats would argue the good thing about this resolution theyre putting on the floor, not only does it unite them, the democrats, but its going to put republicans on record. Right now we might be pulling teeth to get statements from Republican Leadership but in the house theyre not going to have a choice. Theyre going to have to vote on this one way or the other. How does this moment in history how does history judge this moment, do you think . I think were going to look back collectively, not too long from now, and see the inability to find our american compass, right . This is not about simply identity politics, whether youre black or brown or red or yellow or women or if you are gay. Its about how we define what is american. And unfortunately when people say this is not america, this is american. This has happened before, but its not america at its best. What about those great voices that call us to conscience, the better angels of our natures. Statesmen and stateswomen in Political Office who say we rise above narrow, vicious, petty, partisan politics to find the american way. This is going to be harshly judged. We have been through this, though. Weve had charlottesville, weve had birtherism, weve had donald trump calling a mexicanamerican judge and paul ryan said that was racest. Hillary clinton just said lets not forget why trump is attacking Democratic Women of color in the first place. They brought attention to the inhumane conditions they saw at this administrations detention camps. What will we say to those we imprisoned for seeking safety . What do you think . I think that is the context of this. The context of this is that you had the Vice President going down to the border and pamela brown did a great interview with him where he wouldnt acknowledge what was right in front of his eyes. And these women, we had a hearing last week, were quite emotional. A couple of them. And i think that the president is pushing back on that very strongly. I mean he he punches. And that is exactl