Asked if she thinks Rep. Mark Meadows is racist, Rep. Rashida Tlaib responded: “Look, I feel like the act was, and that's up to the American people to decide whether or not he is.” | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Congress Tlaib: Lawmakers 'gasped' when Meadows brought up black Trump employee

Rep. Rashida Tlaib said Thursday that she and others in the House Oversight Committee room gasped on Wednesday when Rep. Mark Meadows pointed to a black Trump administration official as evidence that President Donald Trump is not racist, condemning Meadows' move as racist.

“I think all of us, I mean, even folks at home kind of gasped when that actually happened,” Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on CNN Thursday morning. “I think if we want to talk about race in this country, that was not the way do it.”


During his high-profile public testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen levied a number of allegations against the president, including that Trump repeatedly disparaged African-Americans. Republican committee members spent most of their time during the hearing trying to discredit Cohen, who is slated to begin a prison sentence in May for a series of crimes, including lying to Congress.

Meadows (R-N.C.) introduced longtime Trump Organization employee and current Department of Housing and Urban Development staffer Lynne Patton, who is black, to rebut Cohen’s allegations of Trump’s racism. Meadows asked Patton to stand before the committee and spoke on her behalf — a move that was criticized as tokenizing and ineffective in disproving Trump's alleged racism.

Tlaib called the move racist, but Meadows, chairman of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, fired back at the Michigan Democrat, requesting her comments be stricken from the record. During the ensuing back and forth between the two and the committee chair, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Tlaib clarified that she called the act racist, but not Meadows himself. The North Carolina conservative claimed a record of combating racism and said that he has nephews and nieces who are people of color.

Patton also spoke out Thursday about the exchange in an appearance on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," saying she never meant to speak on behalf of all black people and that she was happy to defend the president. She also said on her Instagram account that she was not a "prop" and that committee Democrats played the "race card" in their criticisms.

“I said it before, I say it again, the president does not see color, race, creed, religion,” Patton said. "What he sees is success and failure.”

Tlaib said she meant no disrespect toward Patton but stood by her earlier comments.

Asked if she thinks Meadows is a racist, Tlaib responded: “Look, I feel like the act was, and that's up to the American people to decide whether or not he is.”