Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), the only African American Republican in the House of Representatives, said Sunday that he viewed President Trump’s attacks on House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) as distinct from his attacks on four minority congresswomen but added, “I wouldn’t be tweeting this way.”
“I think these tweets are different from the ones a few days ago or a few weeks ago… when you tell someone to go back to Africa or whatever country, that’s in essence telling someone because you don’t look like them, that you are not American and you do not have self-worth,” Hurd said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Despite this, he said, “I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn’t be tweeting this way.”
Hurd was one of only four House Republicans to vote for a resolution condemning the tweets in which Trump called on Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) to “go back” to other countries.
{mosads}“My style is to talk about what unites us, not what divides us,” Hurd added.
Pressed on Trump’s tweets about Cummings, which called the congressman’s West Baltimore district “rat- and rodent-infested,” Hurd responded, “Of course you shouldn’t…I don’t think they’re going to invite [Trump] to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game anytime soon.”
Hurd said Republicans would be better served by touting the effects of tax cuts and the Trump-era economy on economically-distressed areas such as parts of Baltimore.