Conservative congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) knew he was sitting down at a majority liberal coffee table on "The View" Monday morning, but he willingly debated the hosts on his ideals, a certain controversial freshman lawmaker, and, of course, President Trump.
Since entering Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has uttered a string of what many would call anti-Semitic remarks and has also made an outrageous comment about September 11, which she defined as, "some people did something." Crenshaw shared his frustration with her rhetoric on Monday and Democrats' inability to call her out. He mused that while some Democrats may disagree with Omar behind closed doors, in public they are "playing a team sport." Even the party's attempt to pass an anti-hate resolution ended up being watered down because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently didn't want Omar to be singled out.
Now it was time for "The View" co-hosts to push back. Behar started by bringing up how Republicans failed to condemn President Trump's remarks about the attack at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, VA two years ago, where a young female counter protester was run over by a car. Trump was criticized for declaring there were "fine people on both sides" of the protest, suggesting to many that he meant the white supremacist demonstrators. Crenshaw tried to clarify that Trump was not referring to them. But the hosts weren't entirely convinced.
"Why do you apologize for him!" Behar exploded. "He's ridiculous."
Crenshaw insisted he's not apologizing for Trump, but Behar has to "read what he actually said."
Both Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg stepped in to defend Omar's 9/11 comments. Hostin, for instance, tried to compare Omar's words to those of President George W. Bush, who also used the word "people" instead of "terrorists" at one point after the attack. Crenshaw was quick to explain that tone of voice played a major factor in those instances and they don't compare. When Bush used those words, he was saying it in the middle of a passionate speech at Ground Zero about seeking justice, but when Omar said it she was being "dismissive."
Goldberg took a different defensive route for Omar, noting that because the freshman is one of our first Muslim U.S. lawmakers, perhaps we should listen to her different points of view on Israel.