President Donald Trump’s turkey-day tirade left at least one GOP strategist in near disbelief.
Melik Abdul appeared on CNN’s “The Arena” on Friday, where guest host Manu Raju asked him for his take on the two-part Truth Social post Trump made just before 11:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving. In it, the president claimed he would “permanently pause” immigration from “all Third World countries,” characterized Somali immigrants as “taking over” Minnesota, accused Somalia-born Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) of coming into the United States illegally, and called the state’s Gov. Tim Walz “seriously retarded.”
“You’re the Republican in the room,” Raju said, before asking Abdul if he could “defend” the language used by Trump in the post.
“No, and I never do,” Abdul said, adding that Trump is “known to say things” that are “a bit inappropriate.”
He then recalled his initial stunned reaction.
“I was one of those who said when I saw it yesterday, I was like, ‘Oh, bro, you gotta be kidding me now,’” he said.
The conservative commentator narrowed in on one remark he found especially egregious. Trump had referred to Omar, who is Muslim, as being “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab.”
Abdul continued, “Because he said something, I think it was ‘swaddling.’ She was like, in a ‘swaddling hijab.’ Like, you’re using the image that we usually associate with Christmas and Christ and Jesus.”
Abdul argued that while Trump’s rhetoric may not hurt him much personally, it could damage the GOP more broadly, since his inflammatory comments are “one of the things that people say over and over again that they just do not like.”
“What happens to the Republican Party?” he asked. “Not Donald Trump, but what happens to the Republican Party?”