GOP congressman defends Trump's racist attack as 'obviously not racist'

In a Monday morning radio interview, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) defended Trump’s racist tweets attacking four Democratic congresswomen.

Trump told the four congresswomen — all women of color, and all U.S. citizens — to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Harris was asked about Trump’s comments during an interview on WBAL radio, a Maryland news station.

“Do you think the president’s tweets this weekend were racist?” asked host Bryan Nehman.

“No, they’re not,” Harris replied. “They’re obviously not racist. Whenever someone disagrees with someone now, the default is to call them a racist, and this is no exception.”

Nehman pressed Harris to explain how the comment could be heard as not racist.

“Clearly it’s not a racist comment, he could have meant go back to the district to the district they came from, to the neighborhood they came from,” Harris answered.

“Do you really believe that he was talking about the district that they came from?” Nehman asked, clearly incredulous at Harris’ answer.

“Absolutely,” the congressman replied.

“Not the country, but the district that they came from?” Nehman pressed.

“Yeah, they all didn’t come from foreign countries so you’d have to presume that it was not a country. But again their default is always, when someone disagrees with someone nowadays, they call them racist,” Harris said.

“This is the first I’ve heard that somebody said that they thought that the president was talking about their congressional districts,” the host replied.

“Well, okay, you listen to the mainstream media, the mainstream media all thinks this is a racist comment,” Harris answered.

It is a racist comment. Trump very clearly suggested that these congresswomen aren’t really Americans because they aren’t white, and that they should “go back” to other countries.

With his dishonest statement, Maryland’s lone Republican congressman continued the Republican tradition of ludicrous defenses of Trump’s indefensible behavior.

Last year, Trump praised congressional candidate Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a reporter. Instead of rebuking Trump, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a member of House Republican leadership, said, “It’s obvious he was not encouraging his supporters to engage in attacks.”

In April, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) raised the ire of the Holocaust Commission in Alabama after he invoked Adolf Hitler’s “big lie” to smear Democrats and the media over the FBI investigation of Trump.

That same month, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) dismissed the evidence detailed in the Mueller report of Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice. The two congressmen insisted that because Trump’s underlings ignored his orders to break the law, that meant Trump had done nothing wrong.

Over and over again, Republicans tie themselves into knots to defend the indefensible from Trump.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.