Rep. Grace Meng accuses Trump and Republicans of 'putting a bull's-eye on the back of Asian Americans across this country'
- Meng hit back at Rep. Chip Roy when he used a hearing on anti-Asian violence to criticize China.
- Trump and the GOP "can talk about issues with any other country that you want," Meng said.
- "But you don't have to do it by putting a bull's-eye on the back of Asian Americans," she added.
At a hearing Thursday about the rising wave of anti-Asian violence, GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas used his opening remarks to go on a tirade against the Chinese government.
In response, Democratic Rep. Grace Meng of New York accused Roy, former President Donald Trump, and other Republicans of "putting a bull's-eye on the back" of Asian Americans by repeatedly using inflammatory rhetoric about the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I want to go back to something that Mr. Roy said earlier," the Democratic congresswoman said in her opening remarks. "Your president and your party and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other country that you want, but you don't have to do it by putting a bull's-eye on the back of Asian Americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our kids."
Meng grew emotional as she continued. "This hearing was to address the hurt and pain of our community and to find solutions, and we will not let you take our voice away from us," she said.
Roy said at the hearing - which came in the wake of a series of deadly Atlanta-area massage-parlor shootings that killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women - that all victims of race-based violence deserved justice. He then quoted an old saying glorifying lynchings in Texas, employed "whataboutism" to point the finger at China, and criticized the hearing as an attempt to stifle free speech.
"I think that what they did to hide the reality of this virus is equally deserving of condemnation," he said of the Chinese government. He added: "I'm not going to be ashamed of saying that I oppose ... the Chinese Communist Party. And when we say things like that, and we're talking about that, we shouldn't be worried about having a committee of members of Congress policing our rhetoric because some evildoers go engage in some evil activity, as occurred in Atlanta, Georgia."