Harris Defends President Trump's Attacks On Congresswomen, Supports Asylum Changes

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris said Monday that President Donald Trump's inflammatory Sunday tweets about four Democratic congresswomen were not racist.

"They're obviously not racist," the Maryland Republican told WBAL's Bryan Nehman. "But again, when anyone disagrees with someone now, the default is to call them a racist and this is no exception."

Harris suggested that Trump was referring to the members' district or neighborhood. However, the president, in his tweets, referred specifically to countries.

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Three of the four Democrats to whom he almost certainly referred were born in the United States--Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan. The fourth, Rep. Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, fled Somalia with her family as a child and later became a U.S. citizen after being granted asylum.

The Maryland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced Harris' defense of the remarks.

“It’s shameful and appalling that a Maryland congressional representative would exploit this dark moment to curry favor with his base by condoning and justifying Trump’s racist tweets,” Zainab Chaudry, the organization's director of Maryland outreach, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the American people have come to expect tacky, sub-standard communications from this president. But we demand principled leadership, not partisan politics, from congressional and local elected officials who have the capacity to temper his problematic rhetoric.”

Even as White House officials moved Monday to defend his incendiary weekend tweets, Trump refused to apologize and instead asked on Twitter when "the Radical Left Congresswomen" would "apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said."

The tweets, which evoked the trope of telling black people to go back to Africa, may have been meant to widen Democratic divides, but instead brought them together in condemnation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump wants to "make America white again," while Ocasio-Cortez said Trump "can't conceive of an America that includes us."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential front-runner, tweeted Sunday that Trump "continues to spew hateful rhetoric, sow division, and stoke racial tensions for his own political gain."

"Let's be clear about what this vile comment is: A racist and xenophobic attack on Democratic congresswomen," tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts.

Nehman also asked Harris about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations that began over the weekend. The operations, announced by the president, targeted people with outstanding removal orders.

"This is a big deal because no president in the past couple of decades has been willing to enforce our immigration law," Harris said.

Citing internal Department of Homeland Security figures, Axios reported last month that while deportations were up compared to the previous fiscal year, they had yet to reach early deportation levels under President Barack Obama.

"The problem is that there is a loophole in our asylum process which allows someone to come into this country, that [if] they say the right words, they will be allowed to stay until they get a deportation hearing, an asylum hearing," Harris said. "But the vast, vast majority of people coming from Central America are here [as] what we call economic asylees."

Families are fleeing gang violence that often targets women and girls, according to the International Rescue Committee. El Savador and Honduras' murder rates are among the highest in the world. Human trafficking is rampant. In Mexico, too, refugees in shelters risk kidnapping, gang recruitment and sexual abuse.

On Monday, the Trump administration moved to end asylum protections for most migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border from a third country.

Harris was also one of 12 House members who voted against a bill to permanently fund the Sept. 11 victims fund. Nehman did not ask about that, but in a statement, he said Congress should have made budget cuts to help pay for the needs of first responders.

"The Democrat House majority instead chose to be fiscally irresponsible and, on a party-line vote, suspended their own rule requiring Congress to find a source of funding whenever new spending is approved that would otherwise increase our federal debt and deficit," Harris said. "A group of fiscally responsible members of the House, as well as the Senate, are now working on a plan that would be able to fund this important idea while finding a way to pay for it so that it doesn’t increase our debt and deficit by tens of billions of dollars for future generations.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.