Why Nancy Pelosi calling Trump's tweets racist on the House floor turned into chaos
Blame Thomas Jefferson.
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/16/20696932/nancy-pelosi-trump-tweet-racist-chaos
The House of Representatives devolved into chaos Tuesday over whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had the right to call President Donald Trump’s tweets attacking four progressive lawmakers of color “racist,” as a matter of official record. The controversy started during a debate over a House resolution condemning Trump’s tweets telling the four lawmakers to leave the country and “go back” to “the crime infested places from which they came.” (The resolution ultimately passed on a vote of 240-187, with four Republican lawmakers voting in favor.) Pelosi called his remarks racist during a speech on the House floor.
“Every single member of this institution should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” Pelosi said. “To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.” Republicans called for Pelosi’s words to be removed from the official record, arguing the speaker broke a House parliamentary rule that states lawmakers cannot malign the character of the president.
What ensued was hours of tumult on the House floor that pushed Democrats and Republicans into their respective corners, caused the former president of the Congressional Black Caucus to “abandon” his duties presiding over the House floor, and that left Pelosi — the House speaker — temporarily banned from speaking on the House floor for the rest of the day. (We’ll explain all of this).
The mayhem comes down to House Republicans’ refusal to censure Trump, no matter the extremity of his rhetoric. Since his weekend tweets, Trump has not backed down on his comments about Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, three of whom were born in the US. He thinks they “hate” the United States, and Republicans have been steadfast in defending him.''
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