New Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is not apologizing for her comment about impeaching President Donald Trump in which she cursed out the president.
While speaking at an event Thursday for MoveOn.org, a progressive advocacy group, Tlaib (D-MI) repeated a conversation that she had with her son to the audience.
“And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Momma, look you won, bullies don’t win,’ and I said, ‘Baby they don’t,’ because we’re gonna go in and impeach the motherf-----,” the congresswoman said.
The congresswoman tweeted Friday morning about her comments, saying, “I will always speak truth to power. #unapologeticallyMe”
I will always speak truth to power. #unapologeticallyMe
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) January 4, 2019
This is not just about Donald Trump. This is about all of us. In the face of this constitutional crisis, we must rise.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) January 4, 2019
But Tlaib’s comments immediately drew criticism and fellow Democratic colleagues worried about the effects the congresswoman’s language would have on the party’s carefully crafted agenda to take on the president, especially since they feared Republicans would use it as an example that Democrats are trying to impeach the president for political reasons.
“Mueller hasn’t even produced his report yet!” Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) said, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. “People should cool their jets a little bit, let the prosecutors do their job and finish the investigation.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who had previously introduced an impeachment resolution, was shocked when a reporter read him Tlaib’s comments, Politico reports.
“That’s not language I would use … I think the office of the presidency should be treated with respect,” Sherman said, adding that that sort of language is not helpful to the Democrat’s cause.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, called the congresswoman’s comments “inappropriate.”
“You can’t accomplish very much of anything unless you have civility and show respect for your colleagues,” Cummings said. “Those kind of comments do not take us in the right direction.”
New House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been hesitant to talk about impeachment and has said that she would prefer to wait until Mueller’s investigation is complete before taking any action, ABC News reports.
“We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report,” Pelosi told “Today” on Thursday morning, just hours before becoming the new Speaker of the House. “We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we’ll just have to see how it comes.”
Following Tlaib’s comments, Pelosi said she didn’t agree with the language, but didn’t think people “should make a big deal” of the profane comments, adding that the president has said some foul comments.
“I’m not in the censorship business. I don't like that language, I wouldn’t use that language, but I wouldn’t establish language standards for my colleagues,” Pelosi said at an MSNBC town hall Friday morning.
Tlaib has previously called for Trump to be impeached. In an op-ed for the Detroit Free Press on Thursday, Tlaib, along with John Bonifaz, co-founder of Free Speech for People who shared the byline, wrote, “President Donald Trump is a direct and serious threat to our country. On an almost daily basis, he attacks our Constitution, our democracy, the rule of law and the people who are in this country.”
“Each passing day brings more pain for the people most directly hurt by this president, and these are days we simply cannot get back. The time for impeachment proceedings is now,” the op-ed concludes.
Trump seized on Tlaib’s comments and wrote on Twitter, “How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?”
As I have stated many times, if the Democrats take over the House or Senate, there will be disruption to the Financial Markets. We won the Senate, they won the House. Things will settle down. They only want to impeach me because they know they can’t win in 2020, too much success!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2019
But the congresswoman’s office didn’t back down on the comments, saying in a statement on Friday on Twitter, “Congresswoman Tlaib was elected to shake up Washington, not continue the status quo. Donald Trump is completely unfit to serve as president. The congresswoman absolutely believes he needs to be impeached.”