Baker: Trump Tweets About Pressley, Congresswomen 'Shameful And Racist'

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker faces reporters during a news conference, Friday, July 5, 2019, at the Statehouse, in Boston. Baker took questions about an investigation into the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles in the wake of a June 21, 2019 collision that took the lives of seven motorcyclists, in Randolph, N.H.

Mike Deehan is a reporter for Axios Boston. He was GBH News' State House reporter from June 2015 to March 2022.

July 15, 2019

Gov. Charlie Baker said on Monday that President Donald Trump's statements directed at four congresswomen on Sunday were "disgraceful," "shameful and racist," saying the president's comments about the four women of color, including Rep. Ayanna Pressley, have no place in public discourse.

"The bottom line here is, you are a public servant and if you're in a job where you're a public servant, you should behave that way. And tweets like that send a horrid, debilitating, hateful message that there's just no place for public discourse," Baker said after meeting with Democratic legislative leaders at the State House.

Trump's series of tweets suggested that a group of freshman congresswomen known as "the squad" — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Pressley — "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in Chicago. Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib were both also born in the United States, and Omar was born in Somalia.

The four congresswomen hosted a news conference late Monday to respond to Trump's comments, during which Pressley told Americans "to not take the bait" and called Trump's "xenophobic, bigoted remarks ... a disruptive distraction."

"Our squad is big. Our squad includes any person committed to build a more equitable and just world," Pressley said. "And given the size of this squad, and this great nation, we cannot — we will not — be silenced."

Baker said he hopes fellow Republicans clearly send a message that Trump's comments are unacceptable.

"I would assume that everybody, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, an independent, whatever, if you're serving in public life, you must know that a big part of your job is to represent everybody. ... You're not going to agree with everybody, but you represent everybody and you need to demonstrate that with your words and your deeds," Baker said.

Baker wasn't the only Massachusetts Republican to condemn Trump's Sunday tweetstorm. Former Gov. William Weld, the lone challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, tweeted Monday that "Mr. Trump clearly lives in a world fueled by his own frenzies."

"America deserves better than a #POTUS @realDonaldTrump who, virtually alone among all Americans, thinks it is proper and politically advantageous not just to launch racist attacks, but to double down on them when called to account," Weld wrote.

WGBH News' Kaitlyn Locke contributed to this report.