Progressive Dems vs. Trump; 'The View' weighs in
After Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley rebuked President Donald Trump's tweets that "'Progressive' Democrat Congresswomen" should stop criticizing the government and "go back" to where they came from, co-hosts of "The View" debated the role the women are playing in the Democratic Party.
On Tuesday, co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Meghan McCain analyzed the statements made by the four progressive freshman Democratic lawmakers and women color, known as the "squad," in a news conference on Monday afternoon.
"If the Democratic Party starts to look a lot more like these women, I’m okay with that.” Goldberg said. “If we can still have that conversation, I’m okay with that because that’s, for me, what the Democrats used to really all be about.”
“The Democratic Party is a very broad-based party,” Hostin said. “I think that they have new, fresh ideas and I think that there’s room for new ideas. But I do think that the Republican party wants ‘the squad’ to be the face of the Democratic party.”
McCain, who condemned Republicans who didn't speak out against Trump's "go back" tweets on Monday, said she sees the "squad" as "the face of the Democratic Party." Although she believes the four congresswomen's policies as "too left" and "too radical" for her, she's "curious to see if the 'squad’ will pull the rest of the Democratic party to impeachment.”
In her opening remarks during Monday's news conference, Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., encouraged Americans "to not take the bait," referring to the president's comments on Twitter.
As one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., argued that Trump's agenda is that of "white nationalists," claiming that "he would love nothing more than to divide our country based on race, religion, gender, orientation, or immigration status."
In 2018, 29-year-old, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. After telling a story about her trip to Washington, D.C. as a child, she delivered a message to the children of America during Monday's news conference. "No matter what the president says, this country belongs to you and it belongs to everyone."
Labeling Trump's tweets "a distraction from what is most important and from our core values as American citizens," Ocasio-Cortez said, "We'll stay focused on our agenda and we won't get caught slipping."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., called the president's tweets "a continuation of his racist and xenophobic playbook." She added that "this is not the first, nor will it be the last time we hear disgusting, bigoted language from this president. We know this is who he is."
The morning following the congresswomen's news conference, Goldberg said on "The View" that "as much as we hate to hear a lot of this stuff, this is still America and people have the right to say what they think and how they feel. Everybody has that right."
Hostin said that she "heard four patriots" during Monday's news conference. "When you look at the bigger picture, what this president is doing is he is trying to squelch dissent."
Following the news conference, Behar said she believed Trump "is running very scared" of what could happen next. "All he does is attack people's ethnicities and their race because he doesn't have a clue about what the policies are."
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