Republican congressman Jason Smith apologises for shouting ‘go back to Puerto Rico’ during tense debate

A Republican congressman apologised for shouting “Go back to Puerto Rico“ on the House floor on Thursday, said California’s Democrat representative, Tony Cárdenas, who Democrats had believed was the target of the verbal attack.

The remark came after Congress had adjourned for the week but politicians exchanged insults as they fought over issues related to a bill to fund the government, according to Politico.

“I was shocked, because I often heard those kinds of comments when I was a kid growing up in Pacoima, California, where I was born and raised,” Mr Cárdenas said in an emailed statement, adding he had been waiting to speak at the moment.

It was initially unclear who made the remark, which came on the same week Republican representative Steve King was stripped of his committee assignments over racist comments.

Missouri Republican representative Jason Smith later admitted to making the statement. But Mr Smith’s communications director, Joey Brown, said in an email that the congressman was “speaking to all the Democrats who were down vacationing in Puerto Rico last weekend during the shutdown, not any individual”.

Mr Cárdenas, the youngest son of immigrant parents from Mexico, is the chairman of Bold PAC, the electoral arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which organised a delegation to visit Puerto Rico over the weekend. The trip has been attacked by conservative media and Donald Trump as the longest government shutdown in history continued, The Post‘s David Weigel reported.

The White House seized on the idea of Democrats “partying on the beach instead of negotiating,” as polls have found most voters blaming Mr Trump for the 24-day impasse over funding the federal government, the longest shutdown in history. “We were not going to let Donald Trump stop us, whether he created a shutdown or whether he wrote mean tweets about us,” said Mr Cárdenas. “Millions of people are being affected all over the country, including in Puerto Rico. Projects are being stopped, right now. And the president is exacerbating this situation, from Puerto Rico to California.”

Mr Weigel also reported that politicians “flew to Puerto Rico as the White House was reportedly considering ways to divert disaster funds earmarked for hurricane relief towards the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border.”

On Thursday afternoon House majority leader Steny Hoyer implored members of Congress of the need “to be civil to one another”.

“I would hope that we could refrain from any implications that have any undertones of prejudice or racism or any kind of -ism that would diminish the character and integrity of one of our fellow members,” Mr Hoyer said on the House floor.

Mr Cárdenas, who has represented California’s 29th District since 2013, told the Hill on Thursday he had immediately confronted his Republican colleagues after hearing the controversial remark, but no one acknowledged saying it.

“There was about 50 mostly male Republicans staring at me, and no one would admit that they said it. I asked several times but no one owned up to the fact that they said it,” he said.

Hours later Mr Smith called and “took responsibility for the comment and sincerely apologised,” Mr Cárdenas said. Mr Smith did not respond to a subsequent email asking for comment about his call to Mr Cárdenas.

But the congressman from California said he accepted the apology, then shared a saying he said his parents taught him.

“De todo lo malo, siempre sale algo bueno,” which in English means: ”From everything bad, something good will come of it.”

The Washington Post