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Democrats Disgusted, Enraged by Trump’s Omarosa Comments

President called former White House aide a ‘dog’ in tweet

President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched another round of derisive comments against former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman. (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)
President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched another round of derisive comments against former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman. (Al Drago/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Democrats in Congress condemned President Donald Trump’s latest batch of derisive comments toward Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former White House aide.

After a Tuesday morning tweet in which Trump called Manigault a “crazed, crying lowlife” and a “dog,” several House Democrats took consternation from insults they said were tinged with racial and misogynistic connotations.

The comments were “absolutely disgusting,” New York Rep. Gregory Meeks said, and follow a “trend of debasing, dehumanizing remarks by this President towards women and minorities who frighten him.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow New York Democrat, dubbed Trump the “Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave” while taunting the embarrassment over tapes leaked by Maginault and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

“I pray that you will stop this vulgar behavior,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. He said a president calling any woman a dog is “degrading and demeaning.”

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona was the only member of the Republican caucus to criticize the comments Tuesday morning. He said Trump’s tweet was “unbecoming of a President of the United States” and signaled that his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill should take the same stand.

The president has been publicly feuding with Manigault since she launched a publicity tour for her White House memoir, which she has pitched as a scathing tell-all. The former aide has teased the Washington press with claims that she secretly recorded conversations in the West Wing with Trump and other senior officials.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly fired Manigault in December 2017. In recent days, she has released recordings of  firing her and Trump discussing the firing with her the next day. She has also alleged the existence of a tape in which Trump uses a racial slur.

Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia joined Democratic colleagues in pointing out a racial element in Trump’s insults, as did Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson, a frequent foe of the White House.

“We already have racism raining down all over America,” Wilson said in a CNN interview. “And the president of the United States is calling a woman of color a dog. How dare he. How dare he call anyone a dog.”

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