House Condemnation of Trump Tweets
Erin Scott | Reuters
We ran the numbers: There are 316 news articles covering this topic. 21% (65) are left leaning, 56% (182) center, and 22% (69) are right leaning.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution yesterday mostly along partisan lines to officially condemn President Trump’s recent tweets directed towards four progressive freshman congresswomen.
On Sunday, the president tweeted that Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota should “go back and fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.'' Although the president has received bipartisan criticism over his remarks, GOP leadership largely defended the president and rejected the description “racist”. The four congresswomen (known as “The Squad”) responded to the president’s tweets in a joint news conference on Monday, arguing that his “blatantly racist” comments are a purposeful distraction from his corrupt administration.
The House Resolution on Tuesday passed 240-187, with four Republican defectors and Independent Rep. Justin Amash joining the Democrats in support of the measure. Debate on the House floor became contentious after Speaker Pelosi’s language resulted in a lengthy procedural fight. Pelosi’s choice of words rebuking Trump’s racist comments violated House rules. The House parliamentarian ruled that the Speaker’s words were out of order and should not be used in debate on the floor.
At one point, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, abandoned the chair after criticizing Republicans and throwing the gavel. The procedural dispute underscored the bitter partisan divide surrounding the President’s comments. The President praised Republican unity on Twitter after the vote while blaming Democrats for “bitterness and hate”.
Coverage of the House’s condemnation of Trump’s tweet differed significantly across the political landscape. A Washington Post article framed the resolution as a politically shrewd move by Nancy Pelosi. “This resolution gives Democrats an outlet to publicly reprimand the president. A resolution is a symbolic vote — it carries with it no legislative weight, and it can’t oust the president — but sometimes in Congress, symbolism matters. These Democrats will go down in the history books as leading a chamber of Congress to condemn the tweets of the president of the United States,” the article asserted.
Conversely, a Fox News article focused on the battle over Speaker Pelosi’s comments on the House floor. The article also noted the prominent Republicans who have publicly defended the President in the wake of his comments. “House Republican leaders, meanwhile, said the outrage over Trump's comments was "all about politics." A series of news organizations, meanwhile, have flatly referred to Trump's comments as "racist," without acknowledging the dispute over the matter,” the article stated.
Centrist news outlets focused on covering the content of the President’s tweets while also reporting on the reaction from Speaker Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. One Yahoo article offered a summary of Nancy Pelosi’s response. “In defending the members of Congress, who are all women of color, Pelosi slammed the president for wanting to ‘make America white again,’” the article noted.