Ocasio-Cortez Rips Trump's Racist Attack: Our Power 'Makes You Seethe'

She pointedly noted she was born in the U.S. after a xenophobic Trump rant targeted her and Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) rebuked President Donald Trump’s bold-faced racism on Sunday after he said on Twitter that progressive Democratic congresswomen should “go back” to the countries they “originally came from,” which he described as “totally broken and crime infested.”

In response, Ocasio-Cortez reminded him that America is her country.

“Mr. President, the country I ‘come from,’ & the country we all swear to, is the United States,” she tweeted. “But given how you’ve destroyed our border with inhumane camps, all at a benefit to you & the corps who profit off them, you are absolutely right about the corruption laid at your feet.”

Doubling down on her criticism, Ocasio-Cortez said the president was incapable of conceiving of a nation that could bring about the election of progressives, empowering them to “call your bluff & offer a positive vision for this country.”

In a spate of tweets that morning, Trump claimed that ”‘progressive’ Democratic congresswomen,” who he did not name, “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all).”

He clearly taking aim at Ocasio-Cortez and three other Democratic House members who took office this year ― Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, all of whom are women of color. Omar is the only one in the so-called “squad” of lawmakers who was not born in the U.S.; she immigrated with her parents from Somalia as a child.

Continuing his attack, Trump slammed the congresswomen for “loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.” Capping off the smear, the president urged the lawmakers to “fix” the “places from which they came,” then “come back and show us how it is done.”

One by one, each of Trump’s apparent targets condemned his remarks online; Omar shamed Trump for “stoking white nationalism” and embracing a “hate-filled agenda.”

Pressley called Trump’s message “what racism looks like,” telling the president the only place she and her colleagues would be going “back to” is Washington.

Shortly after, Tlaib spoke out, saying, “I’m proud of my Palestinian roots & a WEAK bully like you never wins.”

“This is what America looks like,” she added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who Trump said “would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements” in an apparent reference to her feud with Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the squad, also rejected what she termed the president’s “xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation.”

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