“The View” co-host Joy Behar questioned Thursday why President Trump can’t “be brought up on charges of hate speech” over his attacks against four minority Democratic congresswomen in which he told them to “go back” to other countries.
The question from Behar came the morning after the president’s rally in North Carolina, where members of the crowd chanted “send her back” as Trump went after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was born in Somalia before coming to the U.S. as a refugee.
“He doesn’t care or doesn’t acknowledge the fact that what he is doing is possibly inviting violence towards these women, and women who are saying this is wrong. I don’t like this,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said.
“No question,” agreed co-host Sunny Hostin.{mosads}
“This involves every female in this country,” Goldberg argued.
“Why can’t he be brought up on charges of hate speech?” Behar asked before later adding, “Why can’t he be sued by the ACLU for hate speech? I don’t get it. How does he get away with this,” referring to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Trump sparked a firestorm starting Sunday when he tweeted that Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen — all U.S. citizens and members of minority groups — should “go back” to their home countries.
All of the Democrats were born in the U.S. with the exception of Omar, and Trump’s remarks have been called out as racist by much of the Democratic Party and a handful of Republicans.
Trump continued to push the narrative around the freshman congresswomen, dubbed “the squad,” during the rally in Greenville, N.C., on Wednesday night.
“The leading voices of the Democrat Party are left-wing extremists who reject everything our nation stands for,” Trump told the crowd. “These left-wing ideologues see our nation as a force of evil.”
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) called for additional security funding for House members following the president’s rally after the crowd broke into chants of “send her back,” referring to Omar.
“The president now has pushed the envelope to an extreme by taking this beyond his words to the words of other people,” Green, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, told Hill.TV on Thursday.