Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) on Wednesday joined fellow 2020 presidential aspirant Beto O’Rourke in explicitly labeling President Trump a “white supremacist.”
Asked by the New York Times if she believed Trump to be a white supremacist, Warren immediately responded “yes.”
“He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists,” Warren said during a campaign appearance in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.”
Warren’s comments came hours after O’Rourke responded “he is” when asked by MSNBC if Trump was a white supremacist.
“He’s dehumanized or sought to dehumanize those who do not look like or pray like the majority here in this country,” O’Rourke said Wednesday.
Trump’s divisive rhetoric, particularly regarding immigration, has received renewed scrutiny in the wake of the mass shooting that claimed 22 lives at an El Paso, Texas Walmart on Saturday. The shooter, who was taken into custody after the attack, explained in a manifesto posted on the website 8chan that his motivation for the massacre was to repel the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
Critics of the president have seized on the shooter’s use of the word “invasion” in attempting to demonstrate Trump’s culpability, citing the president’s repeated invocation of the word when discussing caravans of Central American migrants.
Former vice president Joe Biden was slightly more restrained than Warren and O’Rourke in his condemnation of Trump, telling a crowd in Iowa on Wednesday that the president has “fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation,” while stopping short of explicitly labeling the president a “white supremacist.”
Trump responded Wednesday to Democrats’ attacks by suggesting that they are simply recycling a cynical political strategy.
The Dems new weapon is actually their old weapon, one which they never cease to use when they are down, or run out of facts, RACISM! They are truly disgusting! They even used it on Nancy Pelosi. I will be putting out a list of all people who have been so (ridiculously) accused!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2019