Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis on Sunday offered a vague justification for President Donald Trump's xenophobic attacks on the Somali community.
“We don't want them in our country,” Trump said Somali immigrants at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “Let them go back to where they came from.”
Asked for comments on CNNCurtis refused to criticize them. “I can’t control anyone but myself, right?” – said the senator.
Instead of directly responding to the president's comments, Curtis took the philosophical route, calling on 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 reflected, “what people say will matter less.” But as CNN's Dana Bash noted, Trump is no accident; “He's the President of the United States calling an entire community trash.”
In response, Curtis deflected again. American voters, he said, “knew very well what we were choosing.” [in 2024]. The country wanted a destroyer.” While acknowledging that such a “disruption” could be “painful,” he suggested it was necessary: “You have to remember, I think the reason the country went in this direction is because they were very uncomfortable with a number of things we were doing in this country, and we wanted a disruptor.”
Apparently, Curtis's stated belief in daily personal efforts to make “all of our immigrants feel more welcome” has not led him to push back even the slightest bit against the president's bigotry.
