BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. -- A top White House adviser on Sunday said there was a "huge difference" between Donald Trump's criticisms of America during the 2016 presidential campaign and the criticisms by four Democratic congresswomen.
Trump's words, according to Stephen Miller, were intended to "lean into and strengthen America's core values, whether it'd be our constitutional values, the rule of law, [or] the principles of Western civilization." The first-term lawmakers, he said, are bent on expressing "anti-American sentiment."
"The reality is that this president has been a president for all Americans, whether you look at historically low black unemployment rates, historically low Hispanic unemployment rates, or if you look at what he's doing on immigration to protect safety, security, rising wages for all American citizens," Miller said.
Miller, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, was shown several video clips of then-candidate Trump criticizing the United States, calling Barack Obama "the most ignorant president in our history" and saying "nobody respects us. They are laughing at us." Criticizing Obama's leadership, the future Republican president said, "We don't know what we're doing."
"The president ran a campaign that can be summarized into words: 'America First,'" Miller said. "There's a huge difference between 'America First' and an ideology that runs down America."
Miller said that Trump, as a candidate, campaigned on the idea that "America needs to improve to get closer to an 'America First' ideal," and that "criticizing Obama, criticizing our trade deals, our foreign policies, our immigration policies, is out of love for America."
Miller said there is no comparison between calling for stricter enforcement of immigration laws and better trade deals, as he said Trump was doing, and threatening to undermine the American way of life, as he asserted the lawmakers want to do.
"These four congresswomen detest America as it exists, as it is currently constructed," Miller said, adding, "There's a gigantic, enormous distinction between Donald Trump saying 'I'm going to get on the world stage and put America first in every single thing we do,' versus a view that says America should never come first and American citizens should never come first, which is their view."
But to a senior House Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the congresswomen, all members of minority groups, "love their country and they work very hard and they want to move us toward that more perfect union that our Founding Fathers talked about."
Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., have pushed back against Trump and the White House, saying they're fighting to help make America live up to its promise.
The four have also criticized Trump in personal terms. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at the president on Sunday, saying she and her colleagues fight for such things as living wages and basic human rights while Trump "hurt immigrant kids."
Her tweeted was retweeted by Omar. Tlaib tweeted: "He tweets. We take action," accompanied by a list of measures passed by or pending in the Democratic-controlled House. Pressley retweeted a clip of Cummings' comments in support of the four.
Trump carried the feud with the lawmakers into a second week on Sunday, tweeting from his central New Jersey residence: "I don't believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country." He accused them of saying "horrible (hateful) things" and argued that they are destroying the Democratic Party but "can never destroy our great Nation!"
Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, defended the lawmakers. Three are committee members.
"When you disagree with the president, suddenly ... you're a bad person. Our allegiance is not to the president. Our allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the American people," Cummings said on ABC's This Week.
"These are some of the most brilliant young people that I have met, and I am honored to serve with them," Cummings said.
A Section on 07/22/2019