On Wednesday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) appeared to accuse Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) of using African American HUD official Lynn Patton, whom he invited to the Michael Cohen hearing, as a “prop.”
Just to make a note Mr. Chairman, just because someone has a person of color, a black person working for them, does not mean they aren’t racist, and it is insensitive that … someone would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber in this committee is alone racist in itself.
After Meadows objected to the alleged insinuation of racism, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked Tlaib to clarify that she wasn’t calling Meadows himself a racist.
Tlaib replied in part:
I’m just saying that’s what I believed to have happened and if as a person of color in this committee that’s how I felt at that moment and I wanted to express that. But I am not calling the gentleman, Mr. Meadows, a racist … so I’m saying that in itself, it is a racist act.
Cummings again asked for clarification, and Tlaib said: “No, Mr. Chairman I do not call Mr. Meadows a racist. I am trying as a person of color Mr. Chairman just to express myself and how I felt at that moment and so just for the record that’s what was my intention.”
Following the brouhaha on Wednesday, a nearly eight-year-old video resurfaced in which Rep. Meadows speaks to a crowd about then-President Obama possibly being from Kenya, a conspiracy theory that was long ago debunked.
At an event prior to his election in June 2012, Meadows stated: “And so what we’re going to do is take back our country, 2012 is the time that we’re going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya, or wherever it is.”
During a Q&A a few days later, Meadows made a similar remark after a man in the crowd asked him about the “birther” conspiracy, claiming there was evidence that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. The man asked Meadows if he would initiate an investigation into the president’s authority.
Meadows replied: “Yes. I see it as, if we do our job from a grassroots standpoint, we won’t have to worry about it. We’ll send him back home to Kenya or wherever it is.”
Shortly after his remarks became public, Meadows told Roll Call: “Obviously bringing it back is probably a poor choice of words on my part more than anything else. I believe he’s an American citizen and I believe, in my district, he is going to lose overwhelmingly.”
When The Daily Wire reached out to Rep. Meadows’ office, his communications director Ben Williamson pointed us to an official comment provided by Meadows on Thursday:
And candidly it was not the way that I should’ve answered the questions. … Certainly is not something that I support from a standpoint of any racial overtones. … I can tell you that anyone who knows me knows that there is not a racial bone in my body.
Notably, despite Rep. Meadows’ comments addressing his 2012 remarks, and claiming that there is not “a racial bone” in his body, he didn’t directly apologize for running with the “birther” theory that suggests that former President Obama was not born in the United States.