Interesting point: Representative Ayanna Pressley begged the press not to let President Trump and his racist comments distract from the real issues. But one of the very first questions went to Representative Ilhan Omar, asking her to address “rumors” that she was a communist associated with Al-Qaeda.
Omar, to her credit, kept incredibly cool in the face of this very Islamaphobic question, and rightfully pointed out that almost all Americans who are Muslim have had questions of this ilk directed at them at some point in their lives. She said she would not dignify the question with answer.
Our senior tech correspondent, Julia Carrie Wong, weighs in on President Trump and his racist tweets:
Whenever Donald Trump achieves a new low on his Twitter feed, critics cry out for the social media company to take action against the account-in-chief. We saw this when Trump tweeted a threat at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, when he tweeted a video encouraging violence against CNN, and when he retweeted racist misinformation by a British hate figure.
Throughout it all, Twitter has declined to take any actions against Trump’s account, recognizing that censoring the president of the United States is not necessarily something that a private company wants to do – or that citizens of a democracy should want a private company to be able to do.
Just last month, Twitter announced a new policy that would allow it to split the baby when it comes to violations of Twitter’s rules by Trump and other world leaders: a special label that would be affixed to tweets by major political figures if they violated Twitter’s rules, but deleting them would not be in the public’s interest.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for Twitter to add such a label to Trump’s racist rant against four progressive congresswomen. A Twitter spokeswoman said the tweets did not violate any of the company’s rules.
Which means that those looking for a way to combat Trump and his racism will be forced to rely on the institution designed to counterbalance the power of the US presidency: Congress.
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