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Tribune News Service

US President Donald Trump is always in search of a new hook to keep his fans engaged, especially one that is likely to offend, gain attention or both.
On Wednesday, he got one when the crowd at his rally in North Carolina broke into chants of “send her back” as he began cataloguing grievances against Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
Trump paused and looked on for several seconds to show his approval.
The shouts carried obvious echoes of Trump’s favourite 2016 chant “Lock her up”, which broke its own norms by calling for the incarceration of his political opponent, Hillary Clinton.
US election 2020: why Donald Trump’s racially charged tirade could be a vote winner
That chant became a hallmark of Trump rallies even long after he had defeated Clinton.
Omar is one of four women of colour in the so-called “squad” of progressive members of Congress whom Trump attacked earlier this week, suggesting that they should “go back” to “the crime infested places from which they came”.


The others are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib.
All four are American. Three were born in the United States; Omar was born in Somalia.
The racist tweet prompted the House to pass a resolution of condemnation on Tuesday, mostly along party lines.
Four Republicans and an independent joined the chamber’s Democrats in condemning Trump’s words.
Donald Trump slammed as racist after ‘go back home’ tweets at Democrat congresswomen
The president has only reiterated his attacks, and his comments at Wednesday’s rally confirmed expectations that he plans to use the clash with the women to drive a hard racial wedge as he campaigns for re-election in 2020.
Trump is likely to use the highly partisan crowd’s chant as validation for his claim that “many people agree with me”.

Trump criticised each of the women by name and gave lengthy descriptions of what he said were anti-Semitic and anti-American sentiments.
He also mocked Ocasio-Cortez for using two names, a common practice among Latinas, insisting he would only refer to her as “Cortez”.
“They said: ‘That’s not her name, Sir”, Trump told the crowd.
“I said: ‘No, no I don’t have time to go with three different names’. We’ll call her Cortez.”
Liberals are “always telling us how to run” the country, he said.
“If they don’t love it, tell them to leave it.”




The scene drew reactions of shock and horror from across the political spectrum.
“The bigoted mob chanting ‘send her back’ tonight is significant,” tweeted Walter Shaub, a former director of the US office of government ethics under Barack Obama.
“When you outdo [Richard] Nixon in repulsiveness, you’ve gone a long way,” said commentator David Gergen on CNN, a veteran of the Nixon and other Republican administrations.
“‘SEND HER BACK, SEND HER BACK,’ is ugly. It’s ignorant. It’s dangerous,” tweeted Joe Walsh, the conservative radio host and former Republican congressman.
“And it’s un-American. It’s flat out bigotry.
Omar herself responded with a tweet on Wednesday, in which she quoted a poem by Maya Angelou: “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
She later posted: “I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal.”
Additional reporting by The Guardian


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Donald Trump

‘Send her back’: Donald Trump rally has a new chant

US President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina. Photo: AP

U.S. Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a news conference after Democrats in the U.S. Congress moved to formally condemn President Donald Trump's attacks on the four minority congresswomen on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 15, 2019. REUTERS/Erin Scott

US President Donald Trump speaks about Ilhan Omar, and the crowd responded with ‘send her back’. Photo: Reuters

Donald Trump slammed as racist after ‘go back home’ tweets at Democrat congresswomen

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York

US President Donald Trump makes a point during a press conference with US Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta early July 12, 2019 at the White House in Washington, DC. - Alex Acosta announced his resignation as US labor secretary Friday, amid criticism of a secret plea deal he negotiated a decade ago with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier accused of sexually abusing young girls. "I called the president this morning and told him that I thought the right thing was to step aside," Acosta said in a joint appearance with President Donald Trump at the White House. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)

Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, from right, Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, and Representative Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from Texas, react during a House Oversight Committee hearing on family separation and detention centers, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, July 12, 2019. Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib gave impassioned speeches on Friday, shedding tears while describing the conditions they witnessed along the border in what they stated was a "policy of dehumanization." Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

In recent days, US President Donald Trump has disparaged several first-year House Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Photo: AFP

US election 2020: why Donald Trump’s racially charged tirade could be a vote winner

US President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photo: AP

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts at a Make America Great Again rally at the Resch Center Complex in Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S. April 27, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

From left, U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., respond to base remarks by President Donald Trump after he called for four Democratic congresswomen of color to go back to their "broken" countries, as he exploited the nation's glaring racial divisions once again for political gain, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, July 15, 2019. All four congresswomen are American citizens and three of the four were born in the U.S. Omar is the first Somali-American in Congress. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

US President Donald Trump’s tirade against four congresswoman of colour, telling them to ‘go back’ to the countries they came from, prompted widespread revulsion. Photo: TNS

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Crowd at rally chanted ‘send her back!’ in reference to Somalia-born US congresswoman Ilhan Omar
Trump set off a firestorm Sunday when he tweeted that she and three other Democratic congresswomen should ‘go back’ to their home countries


Goaded on by the president, a crowd at a Donald Trump rally chanted ‘send her back!’ in reference to Ilhan Omar, a US congresswoman he has attacked in recent days.


US presidential election 2020

‘Send her back’: Donald Trump rally has a new chant

Crowd at rally chanted ‘send her back!’ in reference to Somalia-born US congresswoman Ilhan Omar Trump set off a firestorm Sunday when he tweeted that she and three other Democratic congresswomen should ‘go back’ to their home countries

Crowd at rally chanted ‘send her back!’ in reference to Somalia-born US congresswoman Ilhan Omar

Trump set off a firestorm Sunday when he tweeted that she and three other Democratic congresswomen should ‘go back’ to their home countries