This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2019/jul/16/trump-news-today-live-racist-attack-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-resolution-republicans-latest

The article has changed 14 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 10 Version 11
Trump aide Kellyanne Conway to reporter: 'What's your ethnicity?' – live House passes resolution officially condemning Trump's racist attack on congresswomen – live
(about 5 hours later)
Here’s a bit of comic relief. A veteran congressman from New Jersey has taken an Onion spoof that he is angling for inclusion in the Ocasio-Cortez-Omar-Pressley-Tlaib “squad” and run with it: Reporting on the House resolution that just passed, Sabrina Siddiqui writes:
Well. How bout it @AyannaPressley @AOC @RepRashida @IlhanMN? https://t.co/jqdmXneYv5 The measure, which formally rebuked the president’s comments as “racist”, was approved on a mostly partisan-line vote of 240 to 187.
Hawaiian congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has garnered little traction since she launched her presidential campaign. But the military veteran and staunch anti-interventionist is winning headlines today after campaign finance filings revealed a surprising donation: $5,600 from Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey. The vote came days after Trump’s tweets about four newly elected Democratic lawmakers – Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – sparked a widespread uproar. Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley and Tlaib were all born in the US, while Omar is a naturalized American citizen who arrived in the country at a young age as a Somali refugee.
In FEC filings, Jack Dorsey is listed as maxing out to Tulsi Gabbard the day after the debate...https://t.co/kS0yKzw1LC pic.twitter.com/TvGYIl2VyA “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on the House floor.
The donations were made the day after Gabbard’s appearance in the Democratic debates, where she turned in a performance that was surprisingly popular among sections of the “alt-right”, according to reports by BuzzFeed News and Mother Jones. “To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”
Dorsey’s personal politics are somewhat oblique. He famously joined in protests in Ferguson, Missouri against the police killing of Mike Brown, appearing on stage with prominent protester DeRay McKesson wearing a Twitter-branded t-shirt reading “#StayWoke”. He also opposed a tax on wealthy San Francisco businesses that would help fund services for homeless people, and has drawn intense criticism for failing to crack down on white nationalists and other hate figures on Twitter. Here’s a video of the debate, as it happened:
Gabbard is one of the handful of Democratic candidates who supports breaking up big tech companies, a policy position that could actually be helpful to Dorsey personally. One of his companies, Twitter, competes with Facebook on social networking, while the other, Square, is a payments processor that likely does not want to see Facebook muscle into that space. 'Racist tweets': House passes resolution condemning Trump's attack on congresswomen
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I agree with Senator Warren on the need to break up big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon. Will be introducing similar legislation in U.S. House. https://t.co/OrdOqH0ZFB Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris of California says she has also been told, “Go back to where you came from.”
In late March, Dorsey donated $1000 to another long-shot Democratic candidate, Andrew Yang, according to FEC filings. I've personally been told, "go back to where you came from." It is vile, ignorant, shallow, and hateful. It has to stop. pic.twitter.com/t1oAD7s5Od
The House Judiciary Committee’s hearing with executives from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple has been delayed an hour due to a vote. But the line to get a seat for what is guaranteed to be a grilling from lawmakers on whether the tech giants’ market dominance stifles competition already stretches all the way down a Capitol Hill hallway, per a reporter there. And several other lawmakers have had the same racist trope lobbed at them. HuffPo asked dozens of lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, whether they’ve ever been told to “go back.”
This is the line for House Judiciary Committee hearing on antitrust. Witnesses are Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook reps.Hearing delayed from 2 pm to 3 pm cuz of a vote (Press gets in first, so I am seated in empty hearing room. Possibly only perk of being a journo in life.) pic.twitter.com/LMjteO7gvf Nearly every minority lawmaker said yes. Every white lawmaker said no.
Here’s some video of McConnell: “I’ve been told many times to ‘go back to China,’ even though I’m of Japanese descent, because people are prone to stereotypes,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said. “Asian Americans, among other minority groups, often experience the feeling that they don’t belong in this country.”
"The president is not a racist," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says."I'm a big fan of legal immigration," he adds when asked if President Trump telling the Democratic congresswomen of color to "go back" to their countries is a racist remark https://t.co/b5KzRmr9bK pic.twitter.com/sMMP2MQSl9 “Way, way back when, somebody yelled that. Not lately,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “However, the president seems to be resurrecting that.”
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has attempted to thread a needle in defending Trump against charges of racism, saying that legal immigration, as for example in his wife’s case, has “been reinvigorating America for hundreds of years”. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) remembers hearing the taunt throughout his life, starting when he was a young boy.
Asked how he felt about Trump’s “go back to your country” line given that his wife, transportation secretary Elaine Chao, is a naturalized citizen who arrived in the United States as a child, McConnell responded: “At the age of six, my family and I were in a mall, and these two old ladies next to my family and my three sisters said, ‘Go back to Mexico.’ I think I heard it all the time in high school from every kid who hated me,” he said. “I heard it when I was in the Marine Corps. I heard it when I left the Marine Corps. I heard it in Arizona. I can’t even count the times I’ve heard it.”
“Well the secretary of transportation came here at age 8, legally, not speaking a word of English, and has realized the American dream,” McConnell says. Lawmakers voted to officially condemn Trump’s racist attack on the four progressive congresswomen.
He calls legal immigration “a process of renewal that has gone on in this country for a very long time and we ought to renew it.” The resolution states the House of Representatives “strongly condemns” Trump’s “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”
“Legal immigration has been a fulfilling of the American dream.... My wife is a good example of that,” he continues. 240-187. Trump condemnation passes the House.
“Look, I’m obviously a big fan of legal immigration, it’s been a big part of my family for a quarter of a century... it’s been reinvigorating America for hundreds of years.” Representatives voted largely along party lines — 235 Democrats were joined by four Republicans in support of the measure.
But McConnell won’t condemn the president and depicts Trump’s racism as a two-sided war of words. The 4 Republicans who joined Democrats in condemning President Trump’s racist tweets:• Rep. Hurd (TX)• Rep. Upton (MI) • Rep. Fitzpatrick (PA)• Rep. Brooks (IN)- @AlexNBCNews
“I think everybody ought to tone down their rhetoric,” he says. The Associated Press reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Agency is looking to decrease inspections at nuclear power plants.
“The president’s not a racist. And I think the tone of all of this is not good for the country. But it’s coming from all ideological points of view... to single out any segment of this I think is a mistake.” Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is recommending that the agency cut back on inspections at the country’s nuclear reactors, a cost-cutting move promoted by the nuclear power industry but denounced by opponents as a threat to public safety.
For the record, only one side is telling people of color born in the United States to go back to their countries. The recommendations, made public Tuesday, include reducing the time and scope of annual inspections at the nation’s 90-plus nuclear power plants. Some other inspections would be cut from every two years to every three years...
But McConnell’s strategy here was notably different from that of the House leadership this morning, which simply dug in, vowed that Trump was not racist and basically suggested anyone who thought so was nuts. The nuclear power industry has prodded regulators to cut inspections, saying the nuclear facilities are operating well and that the inspections are a financial burden for power providers.
The House leadership looked as if it wanted to deepen the current argument. McConnell looked as if he was hoping to get past it. Two lawsuits challenging Trump’s new asylum restrictions have been filed today. The latest was filed in DC federal court, by two immigration advocacy groups. The first, from earlier today, was filed by the ACLU.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell opens his news conference with a call for greater civility in [GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY] discourse. Just in: Another lawsuit has been filed challenging the Trump admin's new restrictions on asylum, this time in DC federal court by two immigrant advocacy groups https://t.co/ICDtLTJDR4 pic.twitter.com/rwnPkHNhIh
Saying political rhetoric has become “overheated”, McConnell called on leaders to “lower the temperature” and “raise the level of discourse.” Both lawsuits are challenging new rules from the Trump administration that would end asylum protections for almost all migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border.
Then they pivot to talk of tax cuts. As The Guardian reported yesterday:
The Republican leadership will formally recommend that members vote against a House resolution this evening condemning Trump’s racist tweets, Politico quotes a spokesperson for leadership as saying. According to the new rules, any asylum seekers who pass through another country before arriving at the southern border – including children traveling on their own – will not be eligible for asylum if they failed to apply first in their country of transit. They would only be eligible for US asylum if their application was turned down elsewhere.
That’s a signal to the rank-and-file that leadership is watching. The vote has become a loyalty test to party. The leadership did not need to draw such distinct battle lines. Or have the Democrats by bringing the resolution cornered the Republicans into making a racist Trump tweet into a party loyalty test? In any case it’s all hands on deck now. The change would affect the vast majority of migrants arriving through Mexico. Most of those currently come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but an increasing number are from Haiti, Cuba and countries further afield in Africa and Asia.
PER a spox for Minority Whip Steve Scalise —> GOP leadership will formally be recommending a NO vote to their members on today’s resolution condemning Trump tweets As the House continues to debate a resolution condemning Trump’s racist comments, The Washington Post has published an op-ed from representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, about times people have told him, and still tell him to “Go back to China.”
According to a report from the White House press pool, Trump has been asked where the four House Democratic congresswomen should go if they leave the United States. I served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force and currently serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet I still experience people telling me to “go back” to China or North Korea or Japan. Like many immigrants, I have learned to brush off this racist insult. I never thought the president of the United States would tell members of Congress to “go back” to another country
Trump says “they can stay” then attacks the members of Congress for their critique of the conditions inside migrant detention centers at the border, which critique sparked Trump’s racist tweets of Sunday. President Trump has often crossed the line of what constitutes decent behavior. But this time feels different, because he is now attacking legal immigration and U.S. citizenship. His statements on Sunday and since then imply that immigrants are somehow less loyal to our country, less American, and that we should “go back” or “leave” if we disagree with him.
Trump accuses the members of Congress of not loving the USA. The members might reply that their whole point was that a great country like the United States can do better than caging children. But in Trump’s rubric criticism amounts to treason. Twenty years ago, I wrote an op-ed in The Post about what it was like to wear my Air Force uniform while people questioned my loyalty to the United States, all because of the color of my skin. I was in my Air Force blues when a woman asked if I was in the Chinese air force.
He said: The suspicion that immigrants are not to be trusted or are unpatriotic is not just wrong, it is un-American. And dangerous.
It’s up to them. Wherever they want – or they can stay. But they should love our country. They shouldn’t hate our country. I have clips right here. The most vile, horrible statements about our country. About Israel. About others. The House antitrust committee has just completed its questioning of representatives from Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon in a hearing focused on competition — and anti-competitive behavior — in online marketplaces. The four companies spent much of their time claiming that they face fierce competition, to considerable skepticism from committee members.
“It’s up to them. Do what they want. They can leave. They can stay. They should love our country, and they should work for the good of our country. In written testimony for the House antitrust subcommittee hearing, Google says that it faces competition on search from Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo... https://t.co/liaGmV0utR pic.twitter.com/TOYD5Rvpsh
Mitt Romney summons a masterfully mild framework for Trump’s racist attack on members of congress: it’s a failure of the duty to unite, you see. Pramila Jaypal, a Democratic congresswoman who represents Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, drew quick blood with sharp questioning of Facebook and Amazon. She pressed Facebook’s director of public policy Matt Perault on whether the company had devoted resources to identifying promising startups and targeting them for acquisition – a charge Perault denied despite a very public record of Facebook engaging in this behavior. Facebook’s use of a VPN app called Onavo to collect data on rival apps and inform acquisitions such has WhatsApp has been widely reported. The company has also aggressively copied features by startups that have rejected acquisition, including Snapchat and Houseparty.
Sen. Mitt Romney on Trump's attacks on Democratic congresswomen: "Presidents have a unique role to unite the country and to draw on all people, regardless of their race, their color, their national origin. And, in that regard, the president I think failed" https://t.co/LlxNB3237j pic.twitter.com/MMPxxU9V5o Jaypal also pressed Nate Sutton, Amazon’s associate general counsel for competition, on whether Amazon uses the data it controls on its platform to compete with third-party sellers when it makes its own private brand version of a product – another widely reported practice that Sutton nevertheless denied engaging in. Cicilline further pressed Sutton on the question, reminding the witness that he was under oath. “We use data to serve our customers,” Sutton said. “We don’t use individual seller data to directly compete with them.”
A federal judge has ordered Roger Stone, the former Trump adviser, to refrain from using social media after she found that he violated a previous gag order forbidding him from discussing his case online. Amazon also faced sharp questioning over the various fees that it levies against sellers, and reports that third-party sellers are pressured to pay Amazon for advertising and fulfillment services in order to compete.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Stone on Tuesday that he could not use Instagram or other social media platforms while the case against him moves forward, the Associated Press reported. She said the punishment was necessary because he had proven unwilling to adhere to her orders and to refrain from publicly commenting on the case. And they voted to allow Pelosi to speak, and allow discussion of the Democrats’ resolution to condemn Trump’s comments to continue.
Stone is charged with witness tampering and lying to congressional lawmakers in their investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Democratic senator and presidential contender Elizabeth Warren who is not involved in the hubbub signaled support for Pelosi.
Let’s be very clear: @realDonaldTrump’s tweets were racist. Persist, @SpeakerPelosi. Persist. #shepersisted
And the “Nays” have it. The House votes 190 to 232 against the motion to strike Pelosi’s words from the record. They are also voting on whether to allow Pelosi to speak for the rest of the day.
Matt Fuller of HuffPost explains:
The House is now voting on whether Nancy Pelosi is allowed to speak the rest of the day.Because her words were ruled out of order, the normal punishment is the member can’t speak again.
Meanwhile, Rep. Al Green, a Democrat of Texas says he’s planning to file articles of impeachment against President Trump tonight.
.@RepAlGreen: "What do you do when the leader of the free world is a racist? What do you do? Well, here's what you do. You file a resolution condemning the president for racist comments directed at Members of Congress. What do you do? You file Articles of Impeachment." pic.twitter.com/vUkUWL0mki
As The Washington Post reports:
Green’s move will force House Democrats to deal with the issue in the near term. Under House rules, Democratic leadership can decide to try to table the impeachment articles, effectively killing them for now and risk criticism from the party’s liberal base; refer them to the House Judiciary Committee for possible consideration; or allow the vote to proceed.
If leaders do nothing, Green can force a vote on the impeachment articles in two legislative days.
The move comes as more than 80 members of the House have called for launching an impeachment inquiry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted, however, encouraging her chairmen to keep investigating the president.
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to receive testimony from former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III next Wednesday.