In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character and record of bigotry. The update -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. This past summer, he told several Democratic congresswomen to "go back" to their countries.
For roughly six minutes Thursday night, President Trump predictably singled out Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) during his campaign rally in her home district of Minneapolis. As photos of Omar wearing a headscarf flashed across jumbo screens at the Target Center in the city, Trump ramped up his broadsides against the freshman lawmaker, slamming her as an “America-hating socialist” and a “disgrace.” But he didn’t stop there.
The president soon widened his attack to target Somali refugees in Minnesota, a group that includes Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in the East African country. He promised rally attendees, who booed loudly at the mention of the state’s Somali residents, that he would “give local communities a greater say in refugee policy and put in place enhanced vetting and responsible immigration controls.”
“As you know for many years leaders in Washington brought large numbers of refugees to your state from Somalia without considering the impact on schools and communities and taxpayers,” he said as some in the crowd jeered, adding, “You should be able to decide what is best for your own cities and for your own neighborhoods and that’s what you have the right to do right now, and believe me, no other president would be doing that.”
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In recent years, Trump also reportedly “raged” at former acting homeland security secretary Elaine Duke “asking why he could not ban refugees from ‘f------ Somalia,’” New York Times reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear wrote in their new book, “Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration.”
