A Republican group has distanced itself from an altered movie poster that appeared on its Facebook page, depicting four progressive congresswomen as ‘The Jihad Squad’. The post sparked outrage among local Democrats.

The now deleted post appeared on the Illinois Republican County Chairman’s Association Facebook page on Friday evening. The image is a doctored poster from the 2013 film 'Gangster Squad', with the faces of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) photoshopped onto the protagonists.

“Jihad Squad,” the poster reads, with the tagline: “Political Jihad is their game. If you don’t agree with their socialist ideology, you’re racist.”

It is unclear who created the poster, which circulated on social media for quite some time before an unknown GOP operative thought it would be a good idea to post it on the association’s official page.

Also on rt.com America stumbling towards civil war one terrible tweet at a time

After the story broke in the local media on Sunday, the outraged Cook County Democratic Party demanded an apology and that the post be taken down, even though it had already been deleted by then. The Democrats slammed it as “a racist and inflammatory attack” that “perpetuates the recent attacks by President [Donald] Trump.”

Cook County Democratic Party denounces the post and calls for an apology. It also calls for the post to be taken down which has already been done pic.twitter.com/ga0zqnucrN — Craig Wall ABC 7 (@craigrwall) July 21, 2019

The Illinois branch of the Republican Party was quick to distance itself from the post, saying it was “unauthorized” and promising to tighten up the “internal review process.” Local GOP leaders condemned the post, but also took the opportunity to criticize 'The Squad' for their "socialist policies" and "anti-Semitic language," the Republicans' usual line of attack against them.

As the Chairman of the largest Republican County organization in the State of Illinois, I am appalled by the most recent post on the FB page of the IL RCCA and their use of hateful rhetoric, and I am calling on them to immediately remove this post. pic.twitter.com/p7LGTBp2Vo — Sean M Morrison 🇺🇸 (@SeanMMorrison) July 21, 2019

This statement from Tim Schneider the head of the Illinois Republican Party @ILGOPpic.twitter.com/pAq3PrLfjc — Craig Wall ABC 7 (@craigrwall) July 21, 2019

Trump has faced accusations of racism for tweeting that the four congresswomen should “go back” to their own “broken and crime infested” homelands and later allowing the crowd at a rally to chant “send her back” for 13 seconds in reference to Omar.

Taking heat from both Democrats and Republicans, Trump remained unruffled by the accusations and took another swipe at 'The Squad' on Sunday, demanding they “apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said.”

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!