President Trump’s newly honed campaign strategy of portraying four liberal House lawmakers as the un-American “leading voices” of the Democratic Party was a hit Wednesday night, judging from the boos raining down every time he mentioned their names.
The president’s campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, was the first since Mr. Trump urged the four female freshman Democrats to “go back” to their countries of origin instead of criticizing the U.S. Three of them were born in the U.S.
Referring to violence by the extreme left antifa movement, Mr. Trump said recent comments by the four congresswomen “are helping to fuel the rise of a dangerous, militant hard left.”
“These left-wing ideologues see our nation as a force of evil,” Mr. Trump said. “The way they speak so badly of our country — they want to demolish our Constitution, weaken our military, eliminate the values that built this magnificent country.”
He started with Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a native of Somalia. The president had barely uttered her name when the boos cascaded around the sold-out arena.
“Representative Omar blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks on our country, saying that terrorism is a reaction to our involvement in other people’s affairs,” Mr. Trump said, the jeers intensifying.
“She smeared U.S. service members involved in Black Hawk Down — in other words, she slandered the brave Americans who were trying to keep peace in Somalia,” he said
The president asserted that Ms. Omar “minimized the September 11 attacks on our homeland, saying, ‘Some people did something.’ Some people did something, alright.”
“At a press conference just this week, when asked whether she supported al Qaeda — that’s our enemy — she refused to answer.”
He added, “And she looks down with contempt on hardworking Americans, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country.”
“And obviously and, importantly, Omar has a history of launching vicious anti-Semitic screeds,” the president said, boos rising again. “When she talked about the ‘evil Israel’ and ‘it’s all about the Benjamins,’ not a good thing to say.”
The crowd punctuated the president’s comments with chants of “send her back.”
Then Mr. Trump turned to Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, a Palestinian-American, saying she “agreed with Omar’s characterization of 9/11, and said that members of Congress who support Israel forgot what country they represent.”
“And Tlaib also used the F-word to describe the presidency, and your president,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not nice, even for me. That’s not somebody that loves our country.”
Shortly after her swearing-in this year, Ms. Tlaib told supporters, “We’re going to impeach the motherf——.”
The president next took aim at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, perhaps the biggest media darling of “the Squad.” Mr. Trump said he would refer to her simply as Cortez, saying “I don’t have time to go with three different names.”
“She compared American border agents managing a humanitarian crisis … she said, essentially, Nazis are running concentration camps,” the president said. “Cortez said that illegal immigrants are more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be. Can you believe that that’s what she’s saying?”
More boos from the crowd.
“She described contemporary America — that’s you, that’s me, that’s all of us — as ‘garbage,’” Mr. Trump said.
“Remember ‘deplorable?’” the president asked, invoking the memory of Hillary Clinton’s description in of Trump supporters in 2016. “That sounds worse. But we’ll save it for whoever’s going to be the [Democratic presidential] nominee. And right now, sleepy Joe [Biden] is not looking too good.”
The last of the squad to get Mr. Trump’s special treatment was Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
“Is she related in any way to Elvis?” the president joked.
Then he turned to Ms. Pressley’s comments at the far-left Netroots convention last weekend.
“She thinks that people with the same skin color all need to think the same,” Mr. Trump said. “She said ‘We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be brown voices. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.’”
He wrapped up his assessment by saying the lawmakers are encouraging antifa.
“But that’s okay, because we’re going to win this election like nobody’s ever seen,” the president said to cheers.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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