During today’s Senate testimony on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) took President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to task for her refusal, to tell the truth about President Trump’s racist remarks during last Thursday’s meeting on immigration.
Nielsen argued that she didn’t recall that particular language being used and somehow failed to find any problem with the President’s statements. “I don’t dispute that the president was using tough language,” she said. “Others in the room were also using tough language. I was struck more by the fact that the conversation — although passionate and appropriately so — had gotten to a place where many people in the room were using inappropriate language in the oval office in front of the President. That’s what struck me.”
Booker wasn’t having any of it.
“When the commander-in-chief speaks or refuses to speak, those words don’t just dissipate like mist in the air. They fester. They become poison. They give license to bigotry and hate in our country!”
Sen. Cory Booker on vulgar language reportedly used in the Oval Office by President Trump: "We have a history that is beautiful and grand. And also ugly. From this nation to others, we know what happens when people are bystanders and say nothing." https://t.co/KFBQT4lwKj pic.twitter.com/3KiE9MgPHX
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 16, 2018
“When Dick Durbin called me, I had tears of rage. And for you not to feel that hurt and that pain and to dismiss the questions of my colleagues … with tens of millions Americans hurting right now because they’re worried about what happened in the White House.”
Sen. Cory Booker to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: "When ignorance and bigotry is allied with power, it's a dangerous force in our country. Your silence and your amnesia is complicity." https://t.co/KFBQT4lwKj pic.twitter.com/p5YHIp57zI
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 16, 2018
He went on to give the DHS a much, much needed public lashing for their insistence on ignoring white supremacists and the violence committed by bigots against people of color in favor of obsessing over the vastly overblown threat posed by foreign terror groups.
Sen. Cory Booker: "When the commander-in-chief speaks or refuses to speak, those words don't just dissipate like mist in the air. They fester. They become poison. They give license to bigotry and hate in our country." https://t.co/KFBQT4lwKj pic.twitter.com/mRbyeW1xq4
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 16, 2018
“Since 9/11, 85 violent incidents – 73% were with people who hold hate and bigoted ideas about minorities. The Commander-in-chief in an Oval Office meeting, referring to people from African countries and Haitians with the most vile and disgusting language. When ignorance and bigotry is allied with power, it’s a dangerous force in our country. Your silence and your amnesia is complicity!” raged Booker at the overmatched and unprepared Nielsen.
Today was Booker’s first hearing on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he proved beyond doubt that he isn’t here to play games with Trump and his racist cronies.
The Trump administration has gone out of its way to fan the flames of racial and ethnic tension in the United States, and it’s wonderfully refreshing to see our elected officials taking such an impassioned stand for not only our DREAMERs but for the people of color across the nation who suffer from racism at the hands of Trump’s deplorable supporters.
Nielsen’s response speaks volumes about how the Trump administration feels about Booker’s remarks.
Kirstjen Nielson rolling her eyes at Cory Booker is all you really need to know about what the White House thinks of Congress.
Is there anyone in this WH who is temperamentally fit to be in office? #TuesdayThoughts pic.twitter.com/dVN49APZbr
— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) January 16, 2018
