Overview
- President Donald Trump said of Somali immigrants, “We don’t want ’em in our country” and “Let ’em go back to where they came from,” drawing new scrutiny to his rhetoric.
- Asked on CNN about the comments, Senator John Curtis declined to directly criticize the president and said he can only control himself, urging Americans to make immigrants feel more welcome.
- Curtis described Trump as a “disrupter” whom voters knowingly chose in 2024, acknowledging that the resulting disruption can be painful.
- CNN host Dana Bash pressed that the president was “calling an entire community garbage,” highlighting the significance of the remarks coming from the Oval Office.
- Coverage split along ideological lines, with The New Republic castigating Curtis’s response, The Post Millennial framing it as distancing from Trump, and Townhall showcasing conservative backlash to his call for welcoming immigrants.