Donald Trump Jr has come under fire for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “international welfare queen” amid his surprise trip to the United States.
The Ukrainian leader was in Washington DC on Wednesday to meet President Joe Biden and give an in-person address to Congress.
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Zelensky’s trip to the US is his first travel outside Ukraine since February’s Russian invasion. It came after US lawmakers agreed to give the war-torn country $45 billion in additional assistance.
“Zelensky is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen,” Trump Jr wrote as he shared a tweet by Byron York, Chief political correspondent at Washington Examiner.
In the tweet, York had written: “Zelensky is apparently prepared to tell Congress that whatever the US has given Ukraine — $45 billion in new aid now under consideration — it is not enough.”
Twitter users slammed Trump Jr pointed out that he was the wrong person to decide who or what constitutes a “welfare queen” – a slur coined by Ronald Reagan while running for president in the 1970s aimed at attacking antipoverty policies that followed the civil rights movement.
“Referring to a world leader facing a brutal, unprovoked invasion from a nuclear power as a “welfare queen” (which is a racist trope) is quite a choice,” one user wrote.
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Another said: “Your dad doesn’t pay his taxes. Sit this one out, buddy.”
Author David Corn wrote: “A daddy’s boy who met with a foreign adversary that was attempting to subvert an American election is daring to denigrate a true hero battling Putin & defending his nation from a genocidal war? This may be the dumbest remark ever from Junior. And that’s quite an accomplishment.”
Zelensky toured the US Capitol with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ahead of his address before Congress on Wednesday night.
