Newly sworn-in congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called for the impeachment of President Donald Trump in her first day on office Thursday. She did so both in an op-ed and later in a video in which she is heard describing Trump using a derivative of a four-letter word.
President Trump condemned her remarks during a press briefing Friday.
"I thought her comments were disgraceful," he said.
Tlaib, a Democrat who represents Michigan's 13th District and is one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, was attending a MoveOn.org event Thursday, ABC News reported. She was relaying a story about a conversation she had with her son after being elected.
"And when your son looks at you and says, 'Momma, look you won, bullies don’t win,' and I said, 'Baby they don't,' because we’re gonna go in and impeach the mother (expletive)."
A clip of the comments was posted to Twitter by Nestor Ruiz, described as a digital organizer for United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led organization.
".@RashidaTlaib saying it louder for the people in the back!! ✊🏾 #116thCongress," Ruiz's post said.
Tlaib also co-authored an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press Thursday saying the House does not need to wait for the results of criminal investigations -- including the Russian interference probe by special counsel Robert Mueller -- before looking into whether Trump should be impeached.
"There is no requirement whatsoever that a president be charged with or be convicted of a crime before Congress can impeach him. They (those who say we must wait) also ignore the fact that many of the impeachable offenses committed by this president are beyond the scope of the special counsel’s investigation," Tlaib wrote with John Bonifaz, president of Free Speech For People.
On Friday morning, Tlaib did not directly address her use of an expletive but said in a tweet, "I will always speak truth to power. #unapologeticallyMe." In another tweet, she said, "This is not just about Donald Trump. This is about all of us. In the face of this constitutional crisis, we mus rise."
Tlaib is the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to Congress.
