Newt Gingrich and Lindsey Graham attack Democratic lawmakers on Fox & Friends, don't condemn Trump's racist tweets

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) both took to Fox & Friends on Monday to attack the minority lawmakers who President Trump told to "go back" to where they came from, choosing not to condemn the president's remarks.

Gingrich during a Fox & Friends segment was asked if Trump's tweets were a "good political move," to which the former House speaker praised Trump for his effort to make the country realize "how radical" these members of Congress are "and how fundamentally anti-American their views are," adding that "anything he does to elevate them is to his net advantage," Mediaite reports.

Trump over the weekend had attacked a group of progressive Democratic congresswomen including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), telling these lawmakers, who are U.S. citizens, that they should "go back" to the countries "from which they came." Of the four congresswomen Trump seemed to be targeting, three were born in the United States, and another, Omar, fled to the U.S. from war-torn Somalia at a young age.

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Graham also discussed Trump's remarks on Fox & Friends, lightly suggesting that the president "aim higher" while pointing out that the members of Congress Trump is attacking are American citizens, reports Media Matters for America's Matthew Gertz. But he didn't condemn the tweets and launched his own attack on the lawmakers, who he said "are a bunch of communists" who "hate Israel" and "hate our own country."

Trump himself is continuing to double down on his tweets, on Monday morning suggesting it's these lawmakers who are racist and must apologize. Brendan Morrow