Two videos of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) making racist comments about former President Barack Obama resurfaced on Wednesday after he pushed back at remarks made by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) during Michael Cohen’s testimony.
Meadows and Tlaib had a back-and-forth on Wednesday after she called him out for bringing Lynne Patton, who is a HUD official, to rebuke comments by Cohen that the president was a “racist” and made racist comments in the past.
Tlaib called Meadows “insensitive” and accused him of using Patton, who is Black, as a “prop” to try and criticize Cohen’s claims about the president.
After her comments, Meadows asked that it be stricken from the record—but Tlaib clarified that she was not calling the North Carolina lawmaker a racist, but rather saying that bringing Patton into the hearing to rebuke Cohen’s allegations about Trump was a “racist act.”
“I think if we want to talk about race in this country, that’s not the way to do it,” says Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who accused Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of a “racist act” by using a black woman as a “prop” at the Cohen hearing https://t.co/wFM4X1f1iu pic.twitter.com/7XMnTw4Y9u
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 28, 2019
Meadows was adamant he was not a racist, but after the exchange, people pointed to an old video where Meadows seemed to embrace the so-called birtherism—like President Donald Trump–which claims former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
The video, which was posted on Twitter by Steve Morris of Media Matters for America, shows the North Carolina lawmaker saying that 2012 would be “the time we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is.”
Here’s Mark Meadows, who just sidetracked the entire House Oversight Committee to assure him he’s not racist, saying that “2012 is the time we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya or wherever it is” pic.twitter.com/90L1xnWf6v
— Steve Morris (@stevemorris__) February 27, 2019
Another video of him saying he wanted to send Obama “send him back home to Kenya or wherever it is” also resurfaced.
https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1100988038530940929
The videos have been retweeted by numerous people in the wake of his clash with Tlaib. Meadows’ office did not respond to a request from CNN for comment.
When asked in 2012 about his remarks by Roll Call, Meadows apologized saying it was “a poor choice of words..”
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