According to one Republican commentator, President Donald Trump's decision to lash out at four Congresswomen of color stems from his inability to handle being challenged by women.
In a segment with MSNBC host Ali Velshi, Rina Shah, who runs Republican Women for Progress, said that she's been the target of racist attacks from Trump supporters ever since she announced she wouldn't support him.
"I believe that what this president is doing is fanning the flames," she said. "He cannot denounce white supremacy, white nationalism. This is a moment in which he could have kept his mouth shut. You know, this tit-for-tat with [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi (D-CA) and 'The Squad,' he didn’t need to engage in it. If I was advising the president, if I were one of his advisers, I would have said stay out of it. But he doesn't listen to anyone around him."
Velshi noted that Trump has a long history with these sorts of things and today's Q&A revealed that he's clearly doubling-down on the tweets he sent Sunday.
"It sort of seems to come relatively naturally to him," Velshi observed. "He was asked very specifically, 'Are you worried about the things you’re saying being construed as racist and being embraced by white nationalists,' and he said, 'I don’t care.'"
Shah agreed, saying that it's clear Trump doesn't care.
"He doesn’t care about history, he doesn’t care about words, and he simply doesn’t care for the Constitution," she said. "So, I think we’ve seen who Trump is -- in this moment -- he is somebody who peddles in hate. We've known that for a long time but he he's really told us who he is. Because, the reality here is, Ali, if this were four white women and the spat they had was with a Speaker who was, say, a black woman, we wouldn’t be having this conversation."
She noted that by using the phrase "Go back to your country," he was clearly making it about race. "He couldn't say that to white women," she Shah said. "He can say that because these are women of color."
Shah went on to say that these statements go "beyond intent. I think it’s despicable that the vice president and chief of staff would try to defend this. I think this goes beyond birthplace as Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT) put it. This is about the fact that there are four young 'little Congresswomen' people that have been elected to office, they're challenging his power. They can check his power. And that is what he feels threatened by. It hurts his ego."
Watch the full conversation below:
