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'Trump president for all Americans,' Miller defends his racist comments

(L-R) White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and White House advisor Stephen Miller wait for the arrival of US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida, on June 18, 2019. (AFP photo)

 

US President Donald Trump is “a president for all Americans," says White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller in defense of his boss’s racist comments about four women of color in Congress.

In his interview with "Fox News Sunday," Miller further accused Democrats of efforts “to silence” anyone they oppose amid the feud between Trump and Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib Michigan and Ayanna Pressley Massachusetts

"I think the term 'racist' has become a label too often deployed by the left [and] Democrats in this country simply to try to silence and punish and suppress people they disagree with — speech they don’t want to hear," Miller said."This president has been a president for all Americans."

He further suggested that Trump’s comments telling them to “go back” where they came from is not necessarily racist.

"I fundamentally disagree with the view that if you criticize somebody and they happen to be a different color of skin, that happens to be a racial criticism," Miller said.

Inspired by the president’s comments, Trump’s supporters turned it into a chant, targeting Omar at a  2020 reelection campaign rally in North Carolina Wednesday, shouting “send her back!”

US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) takes questions from the audience as she holds a Medicare for All town hall meeting at Sabathani Community in Minneapolis, Minnesota on July 18, 2019.

"With the 'send her back' chant, the president was clear he disagreed with it," Miller said. "The core issue is that all the people in that audience and millions of patriotic Americans all across this country are tired of being beat up, condescended to, looked down upon, talked down to by members of Congress on the left in Washington, DC, and their allies in many corners of the media."

Host Chris Wallace, however, protested that Trump’s response to the chant could amount to his support for it.

"Excuse me, he let it go on for 13 seconds, and it was only when the chant diminished that he started talking again," Wallace replied. "He said nothing there or in his tweet after the rally that indicated any concern about the chant."

US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, with Vice President Mike Pence (L) and Karen Pence (2nd L), meet with members of the US Special Olympics team in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on July 18, 2019. (AFP photo)

US Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview that Trump might “speak out” against the chant next time.

"The president wasn’t pleased about it and neither was I," Pence said in an interview with CBS News.. "And the president’s been very clear about that. But we’re also not pleased about is the fact that there are four members of Congress who are engaging in outrageous statements."

"This could all go away with one simple word. Or a phrase or something. You have a chance to say it right now. Don’t do it again. Is that your message," said NBC News White House correspondent Major Garrett, prompting him to respond that the "president was very clear."

"Was he?" Garrett asked, to which Pence responded “that he wasn’t happy about it, and that if it happened again he might, he might make an effort to speak out about it."

The former Indiana governor further claimed that “millions of Americans share the president’s frustration about sitting members of Congress engaging in that kind of reckless rhetoric, whether it be anti-Semitic rhetoric, whether it be referring to border patrol agents as running concentration camps, and the president thought it was important to stand up to them."


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