GOP Rep. Lawler says image posted by Trump mocking Obamas was 'racist'
New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler reiterated his criticism of President Donald Trump on Sunday after a post from Trump last week included a racist animation of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes.
"I think sometimes in our public discourse it is best to just say, 'I'm sorry,'" Lawler told ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Lawler, who was one of the first Republicans to criticize Trump over the post on Friday, said that he is taking the White House at its word that the post was a "mistake" made by a staffer. Lawler added that whoever originally created the meme "is an idiot."
Asked on Friday if he would apologize for the video, Trump told reporters he would not.
"No, I didn't make a mistake. I mean, I look at a lot of -- thousands of things," Trump said. "And I looked at the beginning of it, it was fine."
Asked if he condemned the racist portion of the video, Trump said, "Of course I do."
Trump's post included claims of debunked 2020 election conspiracies before the Obamas' faces appear near the end on the bodies of apes abruptly and briefly without explanation with the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" playing over it. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially blasted criticism of the video as "fake outrage" before the White House later blamed it on a staffer and deleted the post about 12 hours after it went online.
GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, one of Trump's staunchest allies, was one of the first prominent Republican to call out the president, calling the post "the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House."
"I think Tim Scott obviously was one of the first people to speak out. I don't think he was engaged in fake outrage," Lawler said.
"I think the vast majority of Americans recognize that that type of imagery, and trying to, you know, compare, the first Black president to a gorilla or a monkey, is insensitive, it's offensive, it's racist," Lawler said.
He added, "Whether it was intentional or a mistake, the fact is it's wrong. And we should all just be able to acknowledge that and move forward."
Here are more highlights from Lawler's interview:
On reports Trump asked for Penn Station and Dulles International Airport named for him
Karl: We learned that President Trump told Chuck Schumer, the Senate leader, that he would be willing to unfreeze $16 billion in funding for a major infrastructure project in New York and New Jersey if the president -- if Schumer were willing to endorse the idea of renaming Penn Station -- and, by the way, Dulles Airport -- after Donald Trump. How how is that OK?
Lawler: I have been against freezing the funds. But how did we get here? Chuck Schumer decided, last fall to shut the government down for 43 days. And as a result, this critical infrastructure project was frozen during that shutdown, in which the entirety of the federal government, you know, was depleted of funds. I know there have been numerous conversations between the president and Senator Schumer to try and resolve this.
Karl: I mean, he's holding the money hostage for having these things named after him. I mean, this is not like part of a, 'Let's honor somebody.' He wants it named after himself and he's saying he will unfreeze the money if they'll do it.
Lawler: Jon, at the end of the day to me, I really could care less what the name of a building is. A critical infrastructure project is. I care that it gets done. And ultimately in my, from my vantage point, you know, work it out. These guys have been in, in, known each other for roughly 50 years. You know, this goes back a long time from my vantage point.
On a bipartisan immigration solution
Lawler: Look, this is an issue that I've been focused on for years. You know, for 40 years, we have not solved our immigration crisis. The American people were rightly outraged by what happened under the Biden administration, where you had over 10.5 million migrants cross our border, most of them illegally. You know, porous southern border needed to be shut down, President Trump did that. The fact is that we have had nine straight months of net-zero illegal border crossings. You've had 675,000 people deported, 1.9 million people self-deport, many of those folks, criminal aliens or people who have been involved in the criminal justice system, the American people overwhelmingly support that. But what they do believe, if you've been in this country, right or wrong, for five, ten, 15, 20 years, your children and your grandchildren are American citizens, people don't want to see families broken apart.
And so there's got to be a legal path forward, not a path to citizenship, but a legal path forward for people to come out of the shadows so that they can work legally, that they can pay their taxes, pay any back taxes owed, pay a fine, not collect government benefits, and not commit a crime that is the basis of the Dignity Act, so that we can actually start to solve a crisis that has been in effect for 40 years. We have over 25 million people in this country who are undocumented. You're not rounding them all up and kicking them out. It’s not realistic.
