The U.S. House of Representatives is preparing to vote Tuesday to condemn President Donald Trump’s racist tweets targeting minority women in Congress, and Wisconsin’s 2nd District Democrat, Representative Mark Pocan believes that may send a message.
“I think it will pass tonight. I think it’s a start of a message. But I don’t know how we’re going to stop, I mean, the problem with the president is not just his remarks on Twitter,” Pocan said during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.
Pocan, who recently visited a facility in Florida where migrant kids are being held, says Trump’s policies on the border are explicitly racist. As for Trump’s Twitter tirades, “I really wish that whoever invented Twitter, we could have a conversation, and a time machine with,” Pocan said. “You know, the fact that we write reams of paper about the president’s 280 characters is a problem, but unfortunately the problem is the president, that’s how he communicates and unfortunately is this case the racist tropes that he put out there have absolutely no reason to exist in the professional environment that we have.”
“I mean his entire policy at the border is a racist policy. It’s based on stopping people with brown and black skin from coming into the United States. And until we can change all of that, we unfortunately have what appears to be a person who is a racist who is president of the United States. You have to put it that bluntly.”
Pocan said he had not seen all the responses from Republican members of the state’s House delegation. “But clearly, when you say people should go back to where they came from . . . that’s just ridiculous. It’s everything that’s wrong with having racism as a central policy in the White House,” Pocan said. “People are just so tired of that type of acrimony happening, that we need to I think as a country do country above party.”
Following up on his racist tweets about four minority lawmakers, the president went after the women Democrats again Tuesday and questioned why Congress is not rebuking them. He also said he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.
