Lindsey Graham: Trump Isn’t Racist Because He Wouldn’t Attack Somalis Who Supported Him

He joins a chorus of GOP lawmakers who are avoiding condemning the president’s remarks.

Stefani Reynolds/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

One of President Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters in the Senate has a novel explanation for why his racist attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) were not in fact racist: If she were a Trump supporter, the president wouldn’t want to send her back to Somalia.

Trump first lashed out at Omar and other liberal congresswomen of color in a series of tweets on Sunday telling them to “go back” to the countries they came from. (Of them, Omar, an American citizen, was the only one not born in the United States.) He escalated the conflict at a campaign rally Wednesday night, when he visibly enjoyed a chant of “Send her back! Send her back!” from his supporters.

But on Thursday, when asked by a reporter if Trump’s comments were racist, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responded, “No, I don’t think it’s racist.”

His reasoning? “A Somali refugee embracing Trump would not have been asked to go back,” Graham said. “If you’re a racist, you want everybody from Somalia to go back cause they’re black or they’re Muslim.”

Graham is the latest in a string of GOP lawmakers to avoid condemning Trump’s repeated targeting of Omar and the other members of a progressive clique of first-term congresswomen: Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—whose wife is a naturalized citizen like Omar—also avoided condemning the president’s racism when asked by a reporter about Trump’s tweets. McConnell simply responded, “The new people who come here have a lot of ambition, a lot of energy, tend to do very well and invigorate our country.”

During debate over a House resolution on Tuesday to condemn the president’s attacks, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) highlighted Trump’s past racist remarks. “Saying immigrants from Mexico are rapists is racist,” he said. “Birtherism is racist.” But before he could continue, a chorus of GOP lawmakers—led by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.)—began making an outcry. “Out of order!” they yelled. Collins then took the lectern and requested that Swalwell’s words “be taken down.”

When pressed by the reporter about Trump’s remarks on Thursday, Graham said, “If you think he’s racist, that’s up to you. “The bottom line is that if you embrace his policies, it doesn’t matter where you come from—he probably likes you.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate