Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) says that he, too, is “a person of color” as he explained his vote against Tuesday’s House resolution condemning President Trump’s for telling four freshman House lawmakers of color – Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) – they should, among other things, “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”
“You know, they talk about people of color. I’m a person of color. I’m white. I’m an Anglo Saxon. People say things all the time, but I don’t get offended,” Kelly told Vice News before the vote. “With a name like Mike Kelly you can’t be from any place else but Ireland.”
All 235 House Democrats voted in favor of the resolution that decried the president’s tweet as “racist.” Other than four Republicans and the newly Independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), Republicans in the chamber voted against the measure.
