President Trump retweeted a far-right British commentator Saturday morning who suggested “send her back!” is the 2020 version of “lock her up!”
The president, who spent Saturday morning retweeting people praising and defending him, promoted four tweets from Katie Hopkins, including one that showed a clip of Trump speaking about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) at a political rally this week. Trump paused while the crowd chanted, “send her back!”
“New Campaign slogan for #2020? ‘Don’t love it? Leave it!’ Send her back is the new lock her up. Well done to #TeamTrump,” Hopkins tweeted with the video, referring to an anti-Hillary Clinton line commonly chanted at Trump rallies in 2016.
It’s been almost a week since Trump attacked Omar and her colleagues, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) with a racist tweet saying they should “go back” and fix the countries they’re originially from, rather than criticizing the United States.
All four women are U.S. citizens, and only Omar was born abroad, in Somalia.
Since then, Trump has continued to escalate the fight, refusing to back down from his contention that the Congresswomen “hate” America.
The day after the rally, he said he wasn’t happy with the crowd’s chant. But by Friday, he was defending his supporters.
In another tweet that Trump shared, Hopkins spoke into a camera for two minutes about how “brilliant” Trump was to go after four minority congresswomen and make the 2020 election a choice between them and him.
“Are you going to choose socialists, choose ISIS, choose the Palestinian flag, choose CAIR?” she wrote. “Or are you going to choose to Make America Great Again?”
In a separate tweet, she lamented, “How I wish we had such leadership in the U.K. Don’t like this country? Don’t like what it gives you? Then leave.”
Hopkins is known for her incendiary commentary. She wrote a column in 2015 comparing migrants to “cockroaches” and “feral humans.” After the 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Hopkins blamed the rabbi for supporting “mass migration.”
Trump has accused Omar of being anti-semitic because of comments she’s made criticizing the Israeli government and its supporters.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether Trump is aware of Hopkins’ past tweets. But it’s not the first time he’s shared her commentary.
A few weeks ago, he retweeted her celebrating the ascent of far-right leaders around the world.
“God-willing / jihadi-failing I am going to be alive to see
Trump in the White House
Boris in Number 10
Netanyahu building Israel
Bolsanaro, Salvini, Orban, Kaczyński, & the Right Minded bringing strength in depth
What a time to be alive
The fightback by proud nations is on.”
