GOP Senator Makes Pathetic Excuse for Trump’s Anti-Somali Hate

Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah on Sunday offered a mealymouthed excuse for President Donald Trump’s xenophobic attacks on the Somali community.

“We don’t want ’em in our country,” Trump said of Somali immigrants at a Tuesday Cabinet meeting. “Let ’em go back to where they came from.”

Asked about the remarks on CNN, Curtis refused to criticize them. “I can’t control anybody but me, right?” the senator said.

Rather than address the president’s comments head-on, Curtis took a philosophical detour, urging every American to live as a positive role model for others—to “wake up every morning, look in the mirror,” and ask yourself what you will do “to make all of our immigrants feel more welcome.”

In such a world, Curtis mused, “it would matter less what individuals said.” But, as CNN’s Dana Bash pointed out, Trump is no random individual; “he’s the president of the United States, calling an entire community garbage.”

In response, Curtis deflected again. American voters, he said, “knew very well what we were electing . The country wanted a disrupter.” While acknowledging that such “disruption” can be “painful,” he suggested it was necessary: “You have to remember the reason, I think, the country went that direction is they were very uncomfortable with a number of things we were doing in this country, and we wanted a disruptor.”

Apparently, Curtis’s professed belief in making a daily, personal effort to make “all of our immigrants feel more welcome” did not compel him to provide even the slightest pushback against the president’s bigotry.