The only GOP politicians talking about Trump's racist tweets are defending them

Republicans are giving this presidential controversy a hard pass.

After President Trump tweeted a racist attack Sunday on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and three other Democratic congressmembers, a number GOP pundits used blogs and tweets to condemn him. Yet Republicans in office haven't said a word, and it's apparently because "history has said that this stuff goes away and that it’s not worth the potentially catastrophic political cost of weighing in against him," one Trump ally tells Axios.

More than 24 hours after Trump's tweets suggested these "'progressive' Democratic congresswomen" should "go back" to the countries "from which they came," only two Republicans in office had said anything on the matter. Trump's close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday morning, saying that the congressmembers Trump attacked "are a bunch of communists" who "hate America."

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Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) did tweet Sunday night that Trump "was wrong to say any American citizen ... has any 'home' besides the U.S." But he then said that "Reps who refuse to defend America should be sent home," and did not clarify what he meant by that.

But while Republicans in the U.S. are largely staying silent, even conservatives across the pond are not. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday condemned the tweets' "language" as "unacceptable," implying that the two conservatives campaigning for her spot should do the same, The Washington Post reports. Candidates Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt so far haven't done so.