Senate Republicans distanced themselves from the nativist rhetoric of Donald Trump on Monday after the former president said immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the United States.
Trump has long courted controversy with his incendiary language on immigration. He continues to call the immigrants illegally crossing the southern border “criminals” and “insane asylum” patients. But his latest remarks, made at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, drew comparisons to Adolf Hitler’s writings on racial purity.
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The White House accused Trump of “echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists.”
Republicans in the Senate emphasized America as a nation of immigrants in distinguishing their views from those of the former president.
“I obviously don’t agree with that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), a member of GOP leadership, said of Trump’s comments. Others called his statement “appalling.”
“I think that rhetoric is very inappropriate,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD).
The ritual, in which Senate Republicans are asked to react to the latest Trump controversy, is as old as the former president’s political career.
“Looks like I’m gonna be answering these questions for another year, doesn’t it?” Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) told the Washington Examiner sarcastically.
Democratic senators such as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) reacted to the news with resigned incredulity.
“As surprising as that is, nothing surprises me coming from him,” Manchin said. “That’s all I can say.”
Many of the responses, however, were also tailor-made to the political moment. Even as centrists like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) condemned the remarks, they simultaneously emphasized the need for border security as daily crossings exceed 10,000 encounters a day.
The influx, acknowledged as a crisis by members of both parties, has led Senate Republicans to demand changes in border policy as a condition for further aid to Ukraine.
Rounds went so far as to blame President Joe Biden for Trump’s rhetoric, saying his agenda has created the conditions under which his comments can thrive.
“I disagree with the rhetoric. I don’t like the rhetoric,” Rounds said. “But these policies are feeding the atmosphere where that type of rhetoric catches on.”
Not all Republicans denounced Trump’s comments. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) made much the same point as Rounds but declined to say whether or not his remarks were acceptable.
“Candidates say what candidates are going to say,” Ricketts said of Trump, who is running for a second term in the White House. “I think he’s reflecting the fact that this is a crisis.”
A number declined to comment entirely.
Many of Trump’s fiercest allies were absent from the halls of Congress on Monday as the Senate returned for what may end up being an abbreviated week in Washington.
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Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) canceled part of the Christmas recess to give Senate negotiators more time to reach a deal on a Ukraine supplemental. But slower-than-hoped-for progress in border talks has meant any compromise will likely have to wait until the new year.
Just 17 Senate Republicans were in Washington for the Monday evening vote.
