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In defending himself against criticism of his tweets that called on four non-white U.S. congresswomen to go back to their totally broken and crime infested countries, President Donald Trump leveled another incendiary falsehood against one of those congresswomen. Of the four women presumably targeted, three — Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — were born in the United States. One, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), is a naturalized citizen and the first Somali-American to serve in Congress. The controversy culminated with a crowd at a Trump rally in North Carolina on July 17, 2019, chanting send her back about Omar. Amid further criticism that the chant was racist, Trump stated he was unhappy with it and claimed he started speaking very quickly to cut the crowd off. But that explanation didn't stick, because video of the incident showed Trump listening quietly to the crowd for roughly 10 seconds before continuing with the attack on Omar that prompted it. So one day after claiming to disavow the chant, Trump on July 19 again changed course, this time renewing his attack on the women by taking one of Ocasio-Cortez's comments out of context and falsely stating she had referred to our country and our people as garbage. I'm unhappy that a congresswoman, in this case a different one, can call our country and our people garbage, Trump said in response to a reporter's question about the chant and his commentary about it. But Ocasio-Cortez didn't refer to the country or its people as garbage. During a March 2019 interview at South by Southwest, she instead criticized the leadership of both political parties for, in her view, abandoning working-class Americans and adopting an apathetic stance toward ambitious social programs while expecting everyone to settle for 10 percent better than garbage. The question that prompted the response was asked by host and then-senior politics editor for The Intercept Briahna Gray, who said: Why do you think it's taken so long to get candidates who are pushing issues like Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, $15 minimum wage, to the foreground? Following is a transcript and video of the exchange:
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