Republican congressman hopes Trump crowd will avoid ‘send her back’ chants at Ohio rally

A Republican congressman who represents a Cincinnati-area district said he hopes the crowd at President Trump’s rally Thursday night in Ohio avoids the “send her back” chants recently heard at a campaign event in North Carolina.

“I would discourage the crowd from doing anything inappropriate and I think saying something like that would be inappropriate,” Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) told The Associated Press.

“I would hope that the president would silence the crowd, tell them, ‘Hey, don’t do that, there’s no place for that. It’s not helpful, it’s not right.’”{mosads}

At Trump’s rally in North Carolina a few weeks ago, crowds chanted “send her back” after he mentioned Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). The president in a tweet had earlier suggested that Omar and three other freshman Democratic lawmakers, all women of color, should “go back” where they came from.

Omar is a Somali refugee who came to the U.S. with her family as a child. 

Trump allowed the chant to continue for 13 seconds, and only spoke once it died down on its own. He later said he did not agree with it and claimed to have tried to stop it. 

Vice President Pence told the AP trump “might make an effort to speak about it,” if “it happened again.” 

Trump’s “go back” tweet was widely labeled as racist by Democrats, and just a few Republicans. In the House vote to condemn the remarks, representatives voted largely down party lines with only four Republicans joining Democrats in officially condemning Trump’s tweets as racist. 

Chabot was not one of them. 

Trump will speak Thursday night at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati.