Hours after Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Rashida Tlaib had a heated exchange about race at the Michael Cohen hearing on Wednesday, a video resurfaced of the North Carolina congressman saying that Republicans were going to send former President Barack Obama “home” to Africa in 2012.
During a campaign stop, Mr. Meadows told the crowd that the country was going in the wrong direction and he added that it “is the time we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is.”
The old clip went viral after Mr. Meadows and Ms. Tlaib, Michigan Democrat, exchanged words on race Wednesday during Cohen’s House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing.
Ms. Tlaib criticized Mr. Meadows’ use of one black woman’s testimony to prove that President Trump was not racist.
“Just because someone has a person of color, a black person working for them does not mean that they aren’t racist,” Ms. Tlaib said. “it is insensitive. … The fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself.”
Mr. Meadows asked for Ms. Tlaib’s comments to be removed from the record.
“There’s nothing more personal to me than my relationships,” Mr. Meadows said. “My nieces and nephews are people of color, not many people know that.”
Ms. Tlaib later clarified, saying “as everybody knows in this chamber, I’m pretty direct. If I wanted to say that, I would have, but that’s not what I said.”
Mr. Meadows has yet to comment on the video, according to The Hill.
Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal attorney, will begin a three-year prison sentence in May after he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2017 and committing campaign finance violations.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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