Rashida Tlaib's profane promise about Trump prompts outrage — and cries of double standard

In the midst of a Friday morning jam-packed with political news, one word came bursting through the din: “motherf***er.”

That was how Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., referred to President Trump, according to video footage of her speaking to a crowd at a MoveOn.org reception on her first evening in office.

“Don’t you ever, ever, let anybody take away your roots, your culture, who you are. Ever,” Tlaib told her cheering supporters, who had gathered in the Washington, D.C., State Room bar on Thursday. “Because when you [do], people love you and you win. And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look. You won. Bullies don’t win.’ And I said, ‘Baby, they don’t,’ because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf***er.”

The video, posted on Twitter by an immigration organizer and widely shared, appeared to have been removed from the platform by late Friday morning.

But it had already lit a fuse, prompting mass criticism of Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman to be sworn into Congress. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders suggested on Fox & Friends that the comments show Democrats have “no solutions for America,” while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., noted the country should “look at the brand-new elected congresswoman and her language,” accusing her of attacking Trump while the GOP is “trying to move America forward.” Conservative radio show host and Reagan administration vet Mark Levin tweeted, simply, “Lowlife.”

Even Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., told CNN, “I don’t like really like that kind of language. But more to the point, I disagree with what she said. It is too early to talk about that intelligently. We have to follow the facts.” But Tlaib, whose controversial opinion piece “Now is the time to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump” had appeared in the Detroit Free Press hours before she made her comments in the bar, is not sorry, according to a pair of Friday morning tweets.

While her tweets prompted a wave of trolling and and name calling, from “human garbage” and “trash mouth” to “snowflake” and “not ladylike,” plenty of Tlaib supporters rose up to call out critics on their pearl-clutching double standard, dredging up everything from Trump’s pre-election “grab ’em by the p***y” comment to Dick Cheney telling Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., “Go f*** yourself” — right on the Senate floor — back in 2004.

Even Nancy Pelosi waded into the discussion when asked for her opinion on Friday, noting on MSNBC, “I’m not in the censorship business. I don’t like that language, I wouldn’t use that language … but I don’t think it’s anything worse than what the president has said.”

Trump and Cheney, it should be noted, also faced public criticism for their obscenities. And that may be why others, including political analyst Kirsten Powers, eschewed the foul-language face-off and dove right into issues.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to Republican criticism of her college dancing video: ‘It is unsurprising’
• RNC chair Ronna McDaniel condemns uncle Mitt Romney’s anti-Trump op-ed
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls out ‘double standards’ in American politics: Paul Ryan a ‘genius,’ while ‘I’m called a ‘fraud’

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