GOP remains silent as Trump urges non-white legislators to "return" to their country

Senators Mitt Romney (Utah) and Lindsey O. Graham (CS) appear at the Oval Office in March. Both legislators have sometimes criticized the president, but none of them spoke out Sunday against his use of racial invective against four women Democrats in Congress. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)

A day has pbaded without any prominent Republicans opposing President Trump's position. notion that four women members of minorities those who criticized its approach to immigration law enforcement should "go back and help repair the totally broken and crime-ridden places they came from".

Insinuating that people of color are foreigners, the president used a trope widely regarded as racist when he tweeted Sunday morning that Democratic women, including one born outside of the United States and who are all US citizens , "originate from countries whose governments are a complete and total disaster."

The silence of the Republican leaders seemed to indicate that they were in agreement with the views expressed by their flag bearer or that he had so effectively consolidated his control over their party that they had become little inclined to express their disagreement.

Another possibility, that Republicans do not consider Twitter-induced presidential clashes as relevant to them, would seem tenuous, as the controversy in this case engulfed their own Congress colleagues. Trump's crusade against John McCain, the late Republican senator from Arizona, is a move that still reliably causes a reaction between the parties.

"It is deplorable what he said," said Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) In March about the smearing of his former Senate colleague by Trump.

"I can not understand why the president would once again disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain," m said Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the former presidential candidate, also criticized the administration following the publication in April of the report of Special Adviser Robert S. Mueller III.

There was no equivalent defense of the four Democratic legislators who appeared to be the president's target on Sunday: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Mbadachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

The four men are grappling with a public feud with their own party leaders for approval of a $ 4.5 billion border emergency badistance program that will , in their opinion, would not sufficiently reduce the authority of the administration. The new progressive legislators are also the favorite prey of Fox News.

[Trump tells four liberal congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their countries, prompting Pelosi to defend them]

The president's derogatory remarks, gathered in a Twitter shootout as mbadive mbad gatherings of immigrants promised by Trump have not yet been executed, have been condemned as racist by Democrats and unaffiliated public officials. Some have used social media to share stories to be told to "go back" to countries from which they never came.

"When I was growing up, I heard a lot of kids coming back to Mexico, even though I was born in the United States," Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) tweeted. "I thought then that it was just children."

In the condemnation choir, which resonated around the world, the absence of Republican voices was striking. Not a single cabinet member has expressed a difference of opinion. Congressional Republicans have not rushed to contradict Trump's suggestion that their colleagues should leave the country – and then "come back and show us how things are done".

Republican Chip Roy of Texas, a long-time GOP advisor and elected to Congress last year, also spoke. he m said the president was "wrong to say that any American citizen, whether in Congress or not, has a" home "in addition to the United States"

However, he also agreed on some aspects of the president's message. He said legislators "who refuse to defend America should be sent home." Helps did not return a request for comment on what Roy meant by "at home".

Otherwise, Trump's most important defender to have criticized his invective was Geraldo Rivera, Fox News correspondent. he called the language of the president "xenophobic" and "even racist" taking care not to criticize Trump, that he called his "friend".

Rivera told Trump, who based his political brand on the false claim that former President Barack Obama was born in Africa, "you're better than that."

Once, the president could expect other Republicans to be censored for comments that clearly violate the norms of his mandate or the principles of constitutional democracy. There had always been a group of Republicans willing to reprimand him – when he took to the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" or claimed that a judge of Mexican origin Originally Indiana could not impartially evaluate a case involving Trump University.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, called the remark on Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, US District Judge, in the summer of 2016, the "clbadic definition from a racist commentary ".

But many of the president's critics within his own party have fled his ranks or gone bankrupt in their re-election efforts. The former congressman Mia Love, from Utah, whose family is Haitian and who denounced Trump last year for calling this nation and other "countries adrift" , lost its seat in mid-November.

"Mia Love did not give me love and she lost," Trump said of the only black Republican woman in Congress.

Others have simply resigned, Ryan among them.

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Rep. Justin Amash from Michigan, who this month changed his Republican to Independent affiliation on Sunday called Trump's directive to first-year Democrats is "racist and disgusting". Son of Palestinian and Syrian immigrants, Amash foiled the GOP in May by announcing his support for an impeachment investigation.

Former Arizona senator Jeff Flake, who was not re-elected last year, issued a slight note of disagreement with Trump's diatribe. tweeting"We are all Americans, Mr. President." But his words no longer come with the weight of the elected mandate.

Others have changed their minds about the president, who enjoys a high popularity rating among Republican voters, even though it's not as high as it is at home. he maintains it.

Senator Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina once described Trump as a "xenophobic and racist religious bigot". On Sunday, after a visit to the southern border, he says on Fox News Immigrants held in overcrowded institutions: "Few of them should stay in these institutions for 400 days. We will not let go of these men that I have seen. It would be dangerous. "It also tweeted on sunday to play golf with Trump.

So-called moderates, such as Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and snipers, such as Senator Ben Sbade from Nebraska, were quiet Sunday.

[‘1950s racism straight from the White House’: Trump’s tweets revolt politicians around the world]

Many members of Congress were born abroad. On the Republican side, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was born in Canada, and representatives Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Mark Meadows of North Carolina were born in Scotland and France, respectively.

None of them went to the defense of the Somali-born Democrat, Omar, whose family fled the civil war and arrived in the United States through a Kenyan refugee camp.

Cruz invoked his immigrant parents in a post on Twitter, but Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, the former Texas congressman who ran an unsuccessful campaign for his seat in the Senate last year . O'Rourke revealed Sunday in a test of Medium, which coincided with the publication of a Guardian investigation, that he was descended from slave owners.

"Dad was a penniless Cuban immigrant," Cruz wrote, opposing his ancestors to the "rich landed aristocracy" whom he said he was born of the Democrats. He did not mention the president's anti-immigrant remarks or his apparent attempt to portray non-whites as foreigners.

Both parties have internal divisions on issues ranging from trade to health care. But Sunday's Republican unity poster was particularly striking, in contrast to the internal feuds with democracy and immigration that made headlines this week.

Faced with no retaliation from his own party, the president appeared emboldened later on Sunday, moving to the offensive against the Democrats for gathering around the women of Congress, which he said on Sunday. he accused of using a "disgusting language".

"So sad to see the Democrats defend people who speak so badly of our country," he wrote.

Rather than provoking criticism, Trump's dissent from the minority-owned group of liberal women provoked laughter over Trump's favorite cable news channel.

A segment on Democratic Divisions focused on Congress's maverick women, known as the "Team," aired on "Fox & Friends" about 20 minutes before Trump launched his barrage on Twitter. Then, later in the day, a co-host of the weekend addition of the show laughed tweets with his colleagues.

"Someone feels very comical today," said Jedediah Bila.

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