Kris Kobach on President Trump’s Tweets

AMANPOUR: First and foremost, let us talk about the real story that’s dominating the headlines not only in the United States but abroad, and that is those tweets described as racist that the president made. How do you describe them?

KOBACH: Well, let me just say one point of context to put this into perspective here for our viewers who might not be seeing the president’s tweets all the time. The president is a master of using Twitter to provoke his opponents into making mistakes. And I think he succeeded in that because when the four members of Congress had their nationally televised press conference yesterday, they effectively became the four most prominent spokes people for the Democratic Party and they, of course, are very far to the left, on the left — the radical left end of the Democratic Party. And as long as they are speaking on behalf of the party, Republicans are winning and Republican poll numbers will go up in places as far as Kansas.

AMANPOUR: All right.

KOBACH: The president achieved what he wanted to achieve with those tweets.

AMANPOUR: All right. So, you’re putting it in purely, you know, poll numbers and political terms. But other members, including Republicans, not many have come out against it, but an increasing number. I spoke to Congressman Will Hurd, the only Black Republican congressman, and this is what he told me yesterday about the comments.

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REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): I think those tweets are racist and xenophobic. They’re also inaccurate, right. The four women he is referring to are actually citizens of the United States. Three of the four were born here. It’s also behavior that is unbecoming of the leader of the free world.

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AMANPOUR: So, that’s what he said, racist. I’m trying to figure out whether you think so beyond what you think as a political ploy by the president.

KOBACH: Sure. So, the problem with Twitter is that with 140 characters, it’s so short that many tweets are open to — they’re ambiguous. They’re open to different interpretations. When I read the president’s tweet in which he said, “They should go back to the crime-infested places from which they came,” I thought, “Oh, he means, AOC, go back to the Bronx. He means Tlaib, go back to Detroit. And so on, crime-infested cities and, you know, fix your own cities which are run by Democrats then come to Washington and tell us how to run the United States.” That’s how I interpreted it. And that’s how a lot of people interpreted it when you say, “Go back to where you came from.” They were born in the United States, three of the four of them. And so, I don’t think he was saying anything about foreign countries.