Rep. Ben McAdams voted Tuesday for a nonbinding resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s racist remarks telling four minority congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from, while Utah’s three Republican members of the House voted against the measure.
The resolution “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”
The bill passed mostly on a party-line vote, with just four Republicans voting with Democrats to condemn President Trump’s comments.
Utah Reps. Rob Bishop, Chris Stewart and John Curtis voted against the resolution, and finally broke their silence about Trump’s comments with a joint statement calling for an end to “social media wars.”
“Freedom of speech is a pillar of democracy. We are not trying to censor President Trump or House Democrats,” said Bishop, Stewart and Curtis in their statement. “But for the sake of not dividing our nation further, the inflammatory rhetoric needs to stop. From claims that ‘Nancy Pelosi is a racist’ to ‘Border agents are Nazis running concentration camps,’ it has gotten out of control. This resolution and these social media wars do nothing to unify our country and only take time and resources away from our true responsibility to get real legislative work done for the people of Utah.”
The three Republicans did not respond to multiple earlier requests from UtahPolicy.com for comment after Trump’s initial tweets on Sunday.
Following his affirmative vote, McAdams said in a statement he was frustrated because Congress should be dealing with more important issues.
“Today was a frustrating day – Exhibit A of what is wrong with Washington. I found the president’s tweet to be offensive and beneath the dignity of the office he holds,” said McAdams. “Divisiveness is wrong and distracts from our work for the American people. The more time we spend talking about offensive tweets and comments from politicians the less time we spend finding solutions to the nation’s serious problems. I’m eager to get back to work doing what voters sent us to do.”
