Donald Trump appeared to confuse two Democrat “squad members” at a recent speech, prompting an online backlash. Speaking in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the former President described an incident in 2016 during which Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib was removed from an event featuring the then-presidential candidate. However, during the Minnesota rally, Trump mistakenly confused Rep. Tlaib with Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar.
In recounting the story, Trump called the Minnesota Rep. “crazy,” “a lunatic,” and “nuts” and described her removal from the previous event, saying she stood up and “started screaming” at him before being removed by security.
Ms. Tlaib was ejected from the Michigan venue for heckling Trump and immediately wrote an article in the Detroit Free Press explaining why she did it. She explained that “disrupting” Donald Trump felt like the “most patriotic and courageous act” she could pursue to demonstrate her contempt for what she described as Trump’s “hateful rhetoric.”
The Democrat also explained that she wanted to follow in the footsteps of other Detroit heroes who had “stood up” and made America a better place. “Walter Reuther, Coleman Young, Rosa Parks, and Viola Liuzzo risked their lives for justice,” she wrote.
The 2016 encounter was not the only time Tlaib and her fellow “squad” members came to blows with Donald Trump. Three years later, Mr. Trump told lawmakers Tlaib and Omar, as well as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, to go back to their own countries and focus on fixing them instead of lecturing Americans about how to run America.
He described the Democratic women’s countries of origin as “complete and total” catastrophes and challenged them to “fix the totally broken and crime-infested places” and then “come back and show us how it’s done.”
Rep. Tlaib was the first to respond and called Donald Trump a “complete failure” as a President. Rep. Omar told her followers that Trump was angry “that people like us are serving in Congress,” while Ayanna Pressley said, “This is what racism looks like.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Trump refused to accept an America that elected lawmakers like her.
