House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday said the “send her back” chant directed at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) that broke out at a President Trump rally last week was “inappropriate” but not about race or gender.
“You’ve heard him say the chant was inappropriate. We’ve all said the chant was inappropriate, but I think the news media really wants to make this about race. … This isn’t about race. It’s not about gender. It’s not about religion,” Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“These members of the House of Representatives — it’s not just these four — fundamentally believe in policies that are dangerous for this nation, and as Republicans we’re going to fight against those,” she added.
{mosads}Cheney’s remarks come a week after Trump sparked backlash by telling the four first-year lawmakers — Omar and fellow Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) — to “go back” to the where they came from before criticizing U.S. policies. All four are U.S. citizens.
During a campaign rally in North Carolina, chants of “send her back” broke out after the president criticized Omar.
Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 after fleeing a civil war in Somalia. She is one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, along with Tlaib.
Cheney on Sunday called the chants “absolutely wrong.”
Trump has said that he did not “lead people on” and was not “particularly happy” with the chant but praised the crowd as “very big and patriotic.”
The House on Tuesday voted to condemn Trump’s tweets as racist. Four GOP lawmakers, as well as Independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), joined every Democrat in approving the resolution.
While most other Republicans denounced the tweets, they denied they were racist and heaped on criticism of the congresswomen’s policy positions. All four of the progressive lawmakers targeted by Trump are women of color.