House GOP leaders are urging members of their conference to vote against a Democratic-led resolution condemning as racist President Trump’s remarks telling a group of minority congresswomen to “go back” to the “places from which they came.”
“House GOP leadership is formally recommending a ‘no’ vote on the resolution,” a spokesperson for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) told The Hill.
{mosads}A senior GOP source said there is not a formal whipping effort since the measure is a resolution and not a bill, but that conversations are taking place with individual GOP lawmakers ahead of the vote scheduled for Tuesday evening.
Multiple sources said more than a dozen Republican members have expressed an openness to bucking party lines and supporting the resolution.
Trump’s remarks on social media — targeting progressive firebrands Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) — has sparked a flurry of outrage.
All four women are minorities and U.S. citizens, and only one, Omar, was born outside the United States.
Democrats have blasted Trump for using a racist trope, and a handful of Republicans, including Reps. Will Hurd (Texas) and Michael Turner (Ohio), have described the language as racist.
Most Republicans have stopped short of that, though many have taken to social media to state that they disagreed with the rhetoric used by the president in his attack.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Tuesday he doesn’t believe the president’s comments were racist, adding he believes Democrats are playing politics instead of focusing on substantive issues. He plans to vote against the resolution and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same.
“It’s all politics. If you look at the resolution itself, and you look at the rules of the House, you can’t even name the resolution on the floor,” he said at a press conference.
“If this is the case of what they are concerned most about let’s go through every comment individuals have made on the other side of the aisle — are we bringing the resolution up on the floor about their comments? No,” he said.
Rep. Paul Mitchell (Mich.) — a member of GOP leadership who spoke out against the president’s tweets on Monday — said while he disagrees with the comments, he does not plan on voting for the resolution, arguing he sees it as a political gambit aimed at dividing Republicans.
“I have expressed directly to the White House my concerns that inflammatory statements targeting anyone on the basis of their ethnicity or origin are wrong,” he said in a statement. “I view today’s Democrat resolution as yet another partisan action that does not move the ball forward.”
The resolution — spearheaded by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) — “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should ‘go back’ to other countries.”