Republican Sen. John Kennedy on Wednesday doubled down on insults he made against a group of minority Democratic congresswomen, saying they’re “more famous than wise.”
“I believe the four congresswomen are more famous than wise,” Kennedy, who represents Louisiana, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “Newsroom,” referring to the so-called “Squad” of lawmakers that consists of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
The remarks from Kennedy come as the group of congresswomen are engaged in a public and highly personal feud with Presidnet Donald Trump, who implied in a series of racist tweets on Sunday that the women were not natural-born American citizens and should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Kennedy was pressed by Sciutto on comments he made a day earlier during an interview on Fox News in which he called the group of progressive lawmakers “whack jobs.”
“They are heartfelt,” he said of the comments when asked if they were helpful or hurtful.
“Heartfelt to call sitting congresswomen ‘whack jobs’?” Sciutto asked.
“Yeah, I believe that,” Kennedy replied.
Asked by Sciutto if his comments were “playground insults,” a term the senator used to describe the racist attacks Trump made Kennedy said, “I guess from one point of view you could make that argument.”
Kennedy said on Wednesday that Trump’s Sunday tweets were not racist and that he doesn’t think the President is a racist, but noted that he believed the comments were “a poor choice of words.”
“It worries me that some immigrants in America would be offended by his words,” he said.