US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said President Donald Trump 'relished' contentious chants in the North Carolina campaign at a town hall meeting in Queens, New York on Saturday.
"Roll back the tape ... He relished it. He took it in and he's doing this intentionally," Ocasio-Cortez said in a meeting on immigration at a school before 200 constituents in New York City. The meeting was her first public appearance in her constituent after Trump made the 'racist' statements.
Trump has been criticised for calling Somalia-born Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and three Democrat Congresswomen - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan to "go back" to where they came from if they do not like the United States in a tweet last week.
The remark was made after the congresswomen spoke about inhumane conditions of migrant detention facilities they visited in Texas.
Trump said on Thursday that his audience in the 2020 campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina "went too far" when they chanted "Send her back!" about Omar. However, he defended the crowd from criticism a day later and called them "incredible patriots."
According to a video of the contentious rally in North Carolina, the crowd is seen shouting "Send her back!" and Trump paused his speech for ten seconds as he looks around the arena.
Trump had defended his attack against the four Congresswomen, the group who calls itself as 'The Squad' and said: "If you're not happy, you can leave".
Analysts have pointed out that the crowd cheering his attack on the four dissenters in his speech and chanting to send Omar back is similar to the Trump's 2016 presidential campaign chant of "lock her up" about opponent Hillary Clinton.
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday scrapped a resolution to impeach Trump over the contentious remarks made that targeted the issue of ethnicity in the United States.
Omar responded to the tweet by quoting a poem by celebrated civil rights activist Maya Angelou, "You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise." She also said, "I am where I belong, at the people's house and you're just gonna have to deal."
Ocasio-Cortez said that while the comments were hurtful but "men like him" have been telling "women like them" to go back to their country "for a long time."
"We're gonna stay right here," Ocasio-Cortez said, "That's where we're gonna go and we're not going anywhere."
