An opinion poll has found that Republican support for President Donald Trump had a slight increase after he posted a series of Twitter posts over the weekend accusing several far-left Democratic congresswomen of anti-Semitic and anti-American behavior.
His most notable post was one where he called on “‘progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” to “go back” to their countries to help fix the “totally broken and crime-infested places” before returning to the United States to “show us how it is done.” Apart from Omar, who was born in Somalia, the other three lawmakers were born in the United States.
Many of Trump’s opponents denounced the comments, calling them racist. Moreover, the House passed a resolution to condemn the president’s “racist” remarks on July 16 largely on party lines.
A recent Reuters-Ipsos public opinion poll, conducted on July 15 and 16, showed that Trump’s net approval among members of the Republican Party rose by 5 percentage points to 72 percent, compared with a similar poll that ran last week.
The poll also found that the president lost support with Democrats and independents since the tweetstorm on July 14.
About 3 out of 10 independents said they approved of Trump, down from 4 out of 10 a week ago. His net approval—the percentage who approve minus the percentage who disapprove—fell by 2 points among Democrats in the poll.
Of the GOP respondents, 48 percent said the tweets were “great,” another 16 percent said they were “good,” and 24 percent said they were “okay.”
The remaining 13 percent said they were “bad” or “terrible.”
Only a few Democrats supported the tweets, with 71 percent choosing the “terrible” description and another 16 percent saying they were “bad.” Among independents, 17 percent said they were “great,” 9 percent said they were “good,” 22 percent said they were “okay,” 19 percent said they were “bad,” and 32 percent said they were “terrible.”
Overall, 21 percent of respondents said they were “great,” while 37 percent said they were “terrible.”
Not Backing Down
Trump showed no signs of backing down when asked during a cabinet meeting on July 16 about his Twitter posts and comments he made about the four freshman lawmakers.“I think it’s terrible when people speak so badly about our country, when people speak so horribly. I have a list of things here—I’m not going to bore you with it because you would be bored. You wouldn’t write it anyway,” he said.
He continued: “But I have a list of things here said by the congresswomen that [are] so bad, so horrible that I almost don’t want to read it, it’s so bad. I think what you should do is: You have the same list that I do. You should repeat some of that. When the Democrats didn’t want to mention the name of the congresswoman, not so long ago, and what they did and the way they’re treating Israel is a disgrace.”
“But not only Israel, what they say about our country. It’s my opinion they hate our country. And that’s not good. It’s not acceptable,” he added.
