Democratic Rep. Criticizes Tlaib: We Can’t ‘Get Into the Gutter With the President’
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver criticized colleague Rashida Tlaib for her profane comment about impeaching President Donald Trump––one of several Democrats who has pushed back on it so far.
Yesterday Cleaver tweeted that Tlaib’s “impeach the motherfucking” comment was “flat-out wrong”:
Yesterday, one of my Democratic colleagues used some less-than-sanitary language when describing the president. As uncomfortable as it is, I must declare that wrong is wrong no matter the political label of the wrong-sayer.
— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (@repcleaver) January 4, 2019
For more than 2 years, I hoped that a member of the president's party would rebuke his use of smutty language to launch unpresidential attacks.
It rarely happened.
— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (@repcleaver) January 4, 2019
In this new Congress we must do what is right and not what is easy. So I'll say what needs to be said:
My colleague was flat-out wrong.
— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (@repcleaver) January 4, 2019
On MSNBC this afternoon, Cleaver told Alex Witt, “Donald Trump has been making these comments or much worse since the campaign. But we cannot afford to get into the gutter with the president. The president is practicing junior high school use of the English language… I think Ms. Tlaib is a good and decent person, and therefore she should not allow herself to get into the same kind of situation that the president intentionally has gotten in over the years.”
He argued that Trump “wants to win on anger,” but they “want to win on principle and on policy.”
You can watch above, via MSNBC.
[image via screengrab]
