Washington: The four liberal Democratic congresswomen currently at the receiving end of US President Donald Trump's racist Twitter rant have rejected his narrative, labelling his widely-criticised statements as nothing more than a "distraction."
"He (Trump) does not embody the grace, the empathy, the compassion, the integrity that that office requires and that the American people deserve," said Massachusetts lawmaker Ayanna Pressley during a joint presser held with fellow Democratic leaders Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
"That being said, I encourage the American people and all of us in this room and beyond to not take the bait. This is a disruptive distraction from the issues of care, concern, and consequence to the American people," she added, according to CNN.
The four freshmen representatives have been targetted by Trump in a scathing Twitter tirade which started on Sunday. He had asked the leaders to got back to the "broken, crime-infested countries" they came from -- a claim which is being seen as a direct attack on Omar who was born in Somalia, but immigrated to the US when she was a child. She later became a naturalised citizen of the country when she was 17-years-old. The other three Democrats are natural-born US citizens.
"I am not surprised when the President says that four sitting members of Congress should 'go back to their own country' when he has authorized raids without warrants on thousands of families across this country. I am not surprised that he used the rhetoric that he does when he violates international human rights and takes thousands of children away from their families," said Ocasio-Cortez while referring to the ICE raids which took place on Sunday and targetted the immigrant community.
"We'll stay focused on our agenda and we won't get caught slipping. Because all of this is a distraction. It is a distraction from what is most important and from our core values as American citizens," she added.