Tlaib says Trump is “biggest bully” she's dealt with in her lifetime

Watch more of Gayle King’s interview with Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar on “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday, airing 7 to 9 a.m. 

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib said President Trump’s incendiary tweets about her and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar were a “distraction” created by a “bully.”

“I’m dealing with the biggest bully I’ve ever had to deal with in my lifetime and trying to push back on that, and trying to do the job that we all have been sent here to do, which is centered around the people at home,” Tlaib said in an interview with “CBS This Morning” host Gayle King. “This is a distraction.”

The four congresswomen, colloquially known as “the Squad,” sat down with King on Tuesday for their first interview since the president’s tweets. Mr. Trump called on them to “go back” to their countries of origin — even though three of them were born in the U.S. and all of them are citizens.

The House is voting on a resolution to condemn Mr. Trump’s tweets Tuesday evening, and the president has shown no sign of backing down from his statements.

“If you’re not happy in the U.S., if you’re complaining all the time, very simply, you can leave. You can leave right now. Come back if you want, don’t come back, it’s OK too. But if you’re not happy, you can leave,” Mr. Trump said on Monday.

“Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body! The so-called vote to be taken is a Democrat con game. Republicans should not show ‘weakness’ and fall into their trap,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Tuesday. 

Several Republicans have defended the president or opted not to say anything about his remarks. In the interview with King, Ocasio-Cortez said Republicans had not done enough to respond, and she noted that no Republican had voted to advance the resolution condemning Mr. Trump’s tweets.

“We just held a vote today, and not a single Republican could bring themselves, no matter what their public statement or what their public gesture or public discomfort, they could not bring themselves to have the basic human decency to vote against the statement that the president made on the floor,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“What kind of message does that send?” King asked.

“The normalization of it. The fact that it’s against our core American values,” Tlaib said. “That they’re choosing him over country.”