Donald Trump Image by Getty

By Benjamin Gladstone July 16, 2019

The Anti-Defamation League on Monday criticized President Trump for his Twitter tirade that they and other observers categorized as racist.

Trump wrote on Sunday that progressive Democratic congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Trump’s words were widely believed to refer to the “Squad” of four congresswomen of color: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley. All of them are U.S. citizens and all but Omar were born in the United States.

Trump also wrote that the quartet “hate Israel with a true and unbridled passion.”

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ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt repeatedly referred to Trump’s tweets as racist on his own Twitter account.

“As Jews, we are all too familiar with this kind of divisive prejudice…the president is echoing the racist talking points of white nationalists and cynically using the Jewish people and the state of Israel as a shield to double down on his remarks,” he added in a statement. “Politicizing the widespread, bipartisan support for Israel and throwing around accusations of Anti Semitism is damaging to the security of Israel and the Jewish community.”

In a blog post, the ADL documented a number of white supremacists and extremists who applauded Trump’s language.

“This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for,” wrote Andrew Anglin, who runs the Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer.

Benjamin Gladstone is an intern at the Forward. Contact him by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @bensgladstone

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