Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

As it happenedended1563319009

Trump news: Fresh calls for impeachment as House condemns president's racists attacks on Democratic congresswomen

House votes to condemn president's racist tweets

Chris Riotta
New York
,Joe Sommerlad
Tuesday 16 July 2019 18:32 BST
Comments
Donald Trump falsely claims Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar had praised al-Qaeda

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The US House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to condemn Donald Trump’s tweets telling four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their countries of origin.

The vote was 240-187 and was solidly opposed by Republicans. It came after Mr Trump and top congressional Republicans denied he is a racist and urged GOP lawmakers to oppose the Democratic measure.

The resolution says the House “strongly condemns” Mr Trump’s “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of colour.”

The president responded angrily on Twitter after the four Democratic congresswomen he attacked in a series of racist tweets – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib - staged a press conference on Monday night strongly condemning his behaviour and calling for his impeachment.

“The Democrat Congresswomen have been spewing some of the most vile, hateful, and disgusting things ever said by a politician in the House or Senate, & yet they get a free pass and a big embrace from the Democrat Party,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Horrible anti-Israel, anti-USA, pro-terrorist & public shouting of the F... word, among many other terrible things, and the petrified Dems run for the hills.”

With Republicans still desperate to avoid being drawn on the matter, Representative Omar attacked President Trump’s “white nationalist agenda” and said: “It is time for us to stop allowing this president to make a mockery of our constitution. It’s time for us to impeach this president.”

Immediately after the resolution vote, a Texas Democrat announced he would file articles of impeachment against Mr Trump in a move that could force a politically fraught vote by the end of the week.

Under House rules, a single member of the House can force an impeachment vote. Mr Green did so twice, unsuccessfully, when Republicans controlled the House.

For now, a majority of House Democrats appear to oppose impeachment.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has resisted launching official proceedings without broad bipartisan support.

Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load

1563281100

Are you... are you OK, congressman?

New York Republican Lee Zeldin here baffling a nation on Fox and Friends on the subject of The Squad.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 13:45
1563282000

Here's Joe Biden speaking as plainly as it gets.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 14:00
1563282900

With the president STILL not backing down on his racist trolling in the last hour...

...here's a not very impressive list of all the Republicans who have spoken out against him so far.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 14:15
1563283800

Veep Mike Pence is unveiling Neil Armstrong's old space suit today and apparently thinks the First and Second World Wars, the Kennedy assassination, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Wimbledon's 1988 FA Cup Final win won't live long in the memory.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 14:30
1563284700

AOC has responded to the president twice this morning but is otherwise getting on with business.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 14:45
1563285600

Here's Google's response to Trump regarding Peter Thiel's claim it is involved a treasonous conspiracy with China.

Spoiler: it's a pretty flat denial.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 15:00
1563285688

"Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!"

Doesn't that sound like exactly the sort of thing a racist might say?

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 15:01
1563286500

House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings says he is expanding an investigation into the use of personal email by Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos.

“New information has now come to light indicating that you and other department officials violated the department’s prohibition on using personal email accounts to conduct official business, violated the requirement in the Federal Records Act to forward these emails to your official account within 20 days and violated the requirement in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to produce relevant records in response to public requests,” Cummings wrote in a letter responding to "disturbing new revelations" released by the education department's inspector general.

Cummings told DeVos the new information suggests she "withheld from the committee information it has been seeking on a bipartisan basis over the past two years".

While her spokesman Liz Hill has dismissed the matter as "nothing more than political grandstanding", according to Politico, the news is expected to inspire some severe gloating/howls of exasperation among Democrats after years of GOP droning about Hillary Clinton's emails.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 15:15
1563287400

Well, this happened.

Joe Biden says he will challenge Donald Trump to a push-up competition if he questions his health again.

This will, of course, never happen. But, if it did, I'm backing Diamond Joe over the Don's skinny arms and ruddy Big Mac paunch every time.

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 15:30
1563288300

Some timely fact-checking on Trump's latest tweets. 

Joe Sommerlad16 July 2019 15:45

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in