This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

In the face of international condemnation – and a trickle of disapproval from his own party – Donald Trump has returned to the offensive against four Democrats he targeted with racial invective on Sunday.

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Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said: “If you’re not happy here, then you can leave.”

Earlier, the president accused the congresswomen of “spewing” “racist hatred” – precisely the offence of which he has been widely accused.

Trump wrote: “When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them [and] their horrible [and] disgusting actions!”

He added: “If Democrats want to unite around the foul language [and] racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular [and] unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”

The tweets reflected others Trump sent on Sunday amid the storm created by his initial demand that the unnamed congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime[-]infested places from which they came”.

The targets of Trump’s ire were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York; Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan; Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts; and Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota.

None are white, all are critics of Trump and progressives ranged against the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, over the direction of their party.

It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me Donald Trump

Before Trump spoke on Monday, a few elected Republicans criticized his comments.

Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said Trump was “wrong” and the congresswomen’s ideas should be defeated “on the merits, not on the basis of their ancestry”.

Susan Collins, a senator from Maine, said the tweets were “way over the line” and should be taken down. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican senator, criticised Trump’s “unacceptable personal attacks and racially offensive language”.

Will Hurd, a Texas congressman, said the tweets were “racist, and xenophobic” and “unbecoming of the leader of the free world”.

The former Ohio governor and candidate for the presidential nomination John Kasich tweeted that Trump’s remarks were “deplorable”. Jeff Flake, who retired as a senator from Arizona at the last election, said the comments were “so vile and offensive it is incumbent on Republicans to respond and condemn”.

At the White House, Trump was asked if he thought his tweets were racist. “Not at all,” he said, adding: “If somebody has a problem with our country, if someone doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave.”

Asked if it concerned him that many thought his tweets racist, he said: “It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me.”

Trump’s first tweets on the matter, sent perhaps to distract from controversy over squalid conditions at the southern border and certainly in an attempt to drive a wedge into a fissure in the opposition party, were factually inaccurate.

Only Omar was born abroad, in Somalia, coming to America at the age of 12. Ocasio-Cortez is of Puerto Rican heritage and was born in New York. Tlaib’s parents were Palestinian immigrants who settled in Detroit. Pressley is African American and was born in Cincinnati.

Omar and Tlaib were the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Ocasio-Cortez is a prominent advocate of policies such as the Green New Deal which have made her a hate figure among Trump’s base. Pressley has been prominent in criticism over the border crisis.

Condemnation was widespread on Sunday, from the four Democrats, senior party figures and press outlets. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said Trump was “leading the GOP into outright racism, and that should concern all Americans”.

Tlaib was among those to call for impeachment. Pelosi’s reluctance to move on the issue is another point of difference between “the Squad”, as the congresswomen are known, and party leaders.

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Condemnation rippled across the Atlantic – a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said Trump’s tweets were “completely unacceptable”. Boris Johnson, May’s heir apparent who is seen to be close to Trump, was under pressure to comment.

But in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s first tweets, few Republicans spoke up.

Justin Amash, a Michigan congressman who has left the party in protest of the Trump presidency, called the tweets “racist and disgusting”. His parents are Palestinian and Syrian. Mia Love, who lost her seat in Utah last year and is African American, told CNN: “I always feel like I’m not part of the ‘America First’ he talks about all the time.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump, in golf attire, departs the White House for the drive to his Trump National Gold Club in Sterling, Virginia, on Sunday. Photograph: Mike Theiler/Reuters

Republican Never-Trumpers did condemn the president. Charlie Sykes, an editor at the Bulwark website, wrote: “There was a time when GOPers like Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, Jeff Flake, even Reince [Priebus] would have denounced this kind of racism. Who will speak out now? Will any elected Republican push back?”

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On Monday, powerful party figures remained silent. Graham, of South Carolina, appeared on Fox & Friends. Trump duly quoted him, pointing to the motivation for his own attack on the congresswomen by tweeting: “Make them the face of the future of the Democrat Party, you will destroy the Democrat [sic] Party. Their policies will destroy our Country!”

Trump’s mentions of Israel were in reference to controversy over remarks made by Omar about foreign policy. References to “foul language” were to Tlaib’s famous promise to “impeach the motherfucker”, delivered to supporters after she was sworn into Congress in January.

Trump sent his original tweets on a Sunday morning, an unsupervised time that according to a new book, American Carnage, White House staffers came to know as “the devil’s play shop”.

Trump sent his Sunday tweets before and after playing golf. On Monday he was back at the centre of American power.