'I Don’t Have a Racist Bone In My Body!' Trump Defends Tweets

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s no racist, despite his repeated attacks against four Democratic congresswomen of color.

In a series of early morning tweets, Trump again talked about Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib “spewing some of the most vile, hateful, and disgusting things ever said by a politician in the House or Senate,” and said his controversial and divisive tweets on Sunday and Monday were not racial in tone.

“Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body! The so-called vote to be taken is a Democrat con game,” the president tweeted. “Republicans should not show “weakness” and fall into their trap. This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country.”

Trump’s latest remarks came hours before the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution condemning the president’s comments as racist—and after the congresswomen fired back on Monday, calling Trump’s comments a “deliberate distraction.” Pressley said she and her colleagues “will not be silenced.”

Ocasio-Cortez took Trump to task on Tuesday, tweeting “Hey Mr. President, remember when you bragged about sexually assaulting women, talking about feeling their breasts and genitals, because ‘when you’re a star they let you do it?’ And then you imposed DOE policies to make it harder for sexual assault survivors to report [an] assault?”

She also tweeted that Trump has “decided he does not want to be President of the United States,” and doesn’t want to be a president to those who disagree with him.

“He’d rather see most Americans leave than handle our nation’s enshrined tradition of dissent,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But we don’t leave the things we love.”

The controversy between the president and the congresswomen comes in the wake of a Pew Research poll released in April that found a majority of Americans queried say Trump has made race relations in America worse.

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defended Trump and said he would not vote in favor of the House’s resolution.

“No. This is about ideology,” McCarthy said during a briefing with reporters. “This is about socialism versus freedom.”