GOP advisers reportedly told Trump his racist attacks on Democratic congresswomen may have backfired
- Advisers to Donald Trump are concerned that his attack on four Democratic congresswomen Sunday may have backfired, reported Politico.
- The advisers reportedly believe that in the attack Trump veered wildly off his campaign message, and helped unite a Democratic party that the week before had been riven by infighting.
- Trump told the four congresswomen of color on Sunday they should "go back and help fix" their "broken and crime infested" countries.
- In new attacks on the congresswomen, Trump has refocused on smearing them as un-American socialists in a bid to return to familiar campaign themes.
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Advisers and allies of President Donald Trump warned that his attack Sunday on four progressive congresswomen of color may have backfired, helping to unite a fractious Democratic party and veering Trump from his 2020 campaign message, reported Politico.
"I'm disappointed he injected himself [in] Dem on Dem violence," a Republican who speaks with Trump regularly told the publication.
"Anything the president does that distracts from the larger and broader issue is always a gift" for Democrats, the person added.
Trump's attack was aimed at four congresswomen of color: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
The president told them to "go back and help fix" their "broken and crime infested" countries, in an attack widely decried as racist.
All of the representatives but Omar were born in the United States, with Omar fleeing violence in Somalia as a child and taking asylum in the US, where she became a citizen.
The four congresswoman had been locked in a dispute the previous week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Trump's attack has united the Democratic party behind them. Pelosi tweeted Sunday that Trump had reaffirmed that "his plan to 'Make America Great Again' has always been about making America white again."
Other analysts though don't agree with the assessment of the Republican insider who spoke to Politico. NBC's Jonathan Allen argued instead that with his attack Trump was succeeding in tying the Democratic establishment to its most progressive members - a gambit that would make his job of portraying the party as radical extremists easier.
Following the attack Sunday, Trump has doubled down in his criticism of the congresswomen - but has refocused on smearing them as socialists hostile to the US and Israel rather than claiming they are not American.
Early Tuesday morning he groundlessly said the group is "anti-USA" and "pro-terrorist."
The new attacks are an attempt to return to 2020 campaign messages which Politico reports advisers were so frustrated he had veered from, with Trump portraying himself as a defender of capitalism and American values versus a Democratic party run by socialists.