Trump slams Tlaib as ‘lunatic’ over resurfaced protest video

President Trump took aim at Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Tuesday, deriding the congresswoman as a “lunatic” after video resurfaced of her protesting a Trump speech in 2016.

“I watched just this morning this Tlaib from Michigan,” Trump said at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit, a gathering of young conservatives and supporters of the president.

“There is no way she stands for the values of the people of Michigan,” Trump continued. “But I watched her this morning. She’s vicious. She’s like a crazed lunatic.”{mosads}

Trump was referencing a video resurfaced by conservative websites over the weekend of Tlaib protesting when the president delivered a speech at the Detroit Economic Club during the 2016 campaign. Tlaib can be seen yelling “You guys are crazy!” at those in attendance.

“She starts screaming, and this is not a sane person, folks, when you look at that. And this is what we’re up against,” Trump said Tuesday.

Tlaib, who was not a congresswoman at the time of the 2016 incident, wrote in a column in the Detroit Free Press after the demonstration that she disrupted the event because she felt “it is unbecoming of any American to not stand up to Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric and tactics.”

The congresswoman’s press secretary said in a statement on Tuesday that Tlaib was ejected from the event because she told Trump “that our children deserve better than the hateful, racist rhetoric” he’d used on the campaign trail, and asked him if he had ever read the Constitution.

“It is abundantly clear in his actions as President that he has not—or doesn’t care to abide it,” press secretary Adrienne Salazar said, adding that Tlaib “will continue the fight to hold this lawless President accountable for his actions and rhetoric.”

Tlaib, who represents a safely Democratic district, was elected to the House last November and has emerged as one of Trump’s fiercest critics, leading calls for his impeachment.

Trump has targeted Tlaib and fellow Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) in recent days.

He sparked a firestorm earlier this month when he tweeted that the group of minority freshman lawmakers should “go back” to where they came from, comments widely panned by Democrats and some Republicans as racist.

All four lawmakers are U.S. citizens and only Omar was born outside the country. The House voted last week to condemn Trump’s tweets as racist.

The president has escalated his attacks against the self-titled “squad” in recent days, claiming repeatedly that they hate the country because of their constant criticism of his administration.

Tlaib appeared unmoved by the barrage of barbs from the White House, telling the NAACP’s national convention in Detroit on Monday that she’s “not going nowhere, not until I impeach this president.”

–Updated at 12:42 p.m.