Republican Gov Rips Trump’s Attacks On Ilhan Omar’s Identity: ‘He’s Not Interested in Uniting the Country’
Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT) sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash in the National Cathedral for a candid interview about political violence in the U.S. and the need for greater unity and civility in American politics.
Wolf Blitzer previewed some of the interview on Wednesday morning, noting, “Our own Dana Bash sat down with two American leaders who are preaching a far different message, a message of unity. They talked about President Trump’s attacks on Somali Americans, including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.”
He then played a clip of Bash asking, “Speaking of your home state of Pennsylvania, President Trump is having a rally. He’s talking about affordability, but he’s also talking about other things. He just randomly talked about Ilhan Omar, talked about the turban on her head, said we should just get her out, and then there was a chant in the crowd: ‘Send her back, send her back.’ So while you all are trying hard to lower the temperature, lower the rhetoric, you have somebody with the biggest, loudest megaphone saying things like that in your party.”
Cox replied, “Yeah, yeah, sure. Look, I disagree with Congresswoman Omar. I think she should be voted out of office, and I think I can do that without attacking her religion or her race or her ethnic background. I think that’s really important. I know that the president disagrees with me. He and I have had these conversations. I have to say, during the Charlie Kirk shooting, in the conversations we had, he talked to me about nonviolence and trying to be a voice for that. I understand he’s not interested in uniting the country.” Cox added:
And he would tell you that, I think, if you were sitting here with us tonight. But I would also say that it’s not going to be a president who fixes this. It’s not going to be two governors who fix this. It really has to be all of us. The politicians that we elect are a reflection of we the people.
Shapiro then jumped in, “I think leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity. That’s true of governors, and I think Spencer Cox meets that mark. I tried to meet it. And I think it’s a responsibility that falls on the President of the United States as well. I think this president not only failed tonight to speak and act with moral clarity by attacking a fellow American—whether we agree or disagree with her positions in Congress—but what he does when he attacks a fellow American like that is send a signal to others in this country that others can be scapegoated, others can be singled out, others can be targeted, or, worse yet, others can become victims of political violence. I think the president has a responsibility here, as do—and I agree with Spencer—as do all Americans, to try and lift up the rhetoric and tamp down the hate. And I think the president needs to do better.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
