Speaker Ryan Already Forfeited His Moral Authority by Failing to Rebuke Trump Immediately
Speaker Ryan and the vast majority of Washington Republicans voted for, endorsed, and continue to support President Trump. Ryan voicing his disappointment over Twitter and his attempted cleanup tonight does nothing to change his longstanding complicity in Trump’s behavior. Simply put, he lost all ability to speak with moral clarity by refusing to name President Trump initially.
“Speaker Ryan and nearly every single House Republican voted for and continue to support President Trump,” said DCCC Spokesman Tyler Law. “Paul Ryan’s lack of moral clarity helped set the stage for President Trump’s offensive response to the violence in Charlottesville and House Republicans will be held accountable along with the President.”
Here’s a sampling of some other House Republicans that helped pave the way for President Trump’s racially charged Presidency…
Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48)spoke at a rallyfeaturing white nationalists and Nazis. Similar to Charlottesville, opposition protestors and members of the media were attackedby them. After all this, Rohrabacher spoke at a second rally organized by the same group.
Darrell Issa (CA-49)spoke at an eventsponsored by FAIR, which is labeled a hate group by the SPLC and has extensive ties to white nationalism.
Duncan Hunter (CA-50) criticized Judge Curiel, the Latino judge that oversaw the Trump University case, for holding membership in a state Hispanic bar association, saying that it was just like belonging to a white supremacist group.
Mike Coffman (CO-06)spoke to a leading anti-Muslim hate group and said this about President Obama: “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”
Brian Mast (FL-18) called the press the “greatest saboteur” of the 2016 election.
Rod Blum (IA-01) said “Let’s face it – sitting next to some white kid isn’t going to help the minority kid in school. There exists very little evidence that racial mixing improves student achievement”.
Steve King (IA-04) said”We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
Mike Bost (IL-12) describing his opposition to holding Town Hall events, said, “You know the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them? That’s not what we need.”
Tim Walberg (MI-07)said he didn’t know if President Obama was born in America.
Jason Lewis (MN-02) “wrote that President Abraham Lincoln ‘exploited the issue’ of slavery, adding the Civil War, or what Lewis called the ‘War Between the States,’ had ‘more to do with secession’ than slavery.”
Greg Gianforte (MT-AL)donated to a white nationalist andpoliticians affiliated to the Oath Keeper movement.
Robert Pittenger (NC-09) said “they hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not.”
Kevin Cramer (ND-AL)said Sean Spicer’s analogy between Adolf Hitler and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was “not without some validity.”
Lee Zeldin (NY-01) blamed“many sides” and “multiple groups” for the violence in Charlottesville last weekend, and yesterdayissued a statement defending President Trump’s “both sides” remarks at his Trump tower press conference.
Claudia Tenney’s (NY-22) offensive anti-Italianethnic slurs about her opponent’s family were called “disgusting, not to mention highly insulting” by theUtica Observer-Dispatch. Breitbart, described by its former executive chair Steve Bannon as “the platform for the alt-right,” recently published a fawning profile of Tenney under the headline “EXCLUSIVE – A STAR IS BORN”. And just this morning, Tenney agreed with Trump that “there is fault to be found on both sides.”
Tom Reed (NY-23)said “From my perspective alt-right is a label that is out to try to describe what I believe is an extremist movement on both the right and left. There’s an alt-right movement to the left as you’ve seen across the country.”
John Faso (NY-24) spoke in2016to the Oath Keepers, a “radical antigovernment organization”and part of the far-right militia movement. Lee Zeldin met with the Oath Keepers in 2014and 2015.
Scott Taylor (VA-02) said there was “premeditated lawlessness on both sides.”
Tom Garrett (VA-05) met with Jason Kessler, awhite nationalist blogger and organizerof the Charlottesville white supremacy rally.
Dave Brat (VA-07) complained that his constituents booing him at a town hall “gave him a taste” of the violence in Charlottesville.
Barbara Comstock (VA-10) said immigrants should be tracked “like FedEx packages.”