By Jeff Mason and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. Congress moved on Monday to formally condemn President Donald Trump's attacks on four minority congresswomen as House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her party would introduce a resolution criticizing his "xenophobic tweets."
The move could put Trump's fellow Republicans in an awkward position, forcing them either to vote against their leader, who has strong support among conservative voters, or effectively defend statements that have been widely described as racist.
"Our Republican colleagues must join us in condemning the President's xenophobic tweets," Pelosi said in a statement. She did not say when the vote would take place.
Republican lawmakers have been slow to speak out against Trump's attacks on the four congresswomen, which Democrats have broadly condemned as divisive and racist.
Representative Will Hurd, the only African-American Republican in the House, was a rare exception. "The tweets are racist and xenophobic. They're also inaccurate," he said on CNN.
Trump during the weekend said in a tweet that the four first-term congresswomen, known informally in Congress as "the squad," should "go back" to the "the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."
In remarks at the White House on Monday, Trump said he was not concerned if people thought his tweets were racist. "As far as I'm concerned if you hate our country, if you're not happy here you can leave," he said.
Trump did not mention names in his initial Sunday tweets targeting "'Progressive' Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe." He appeared to reference representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, who all have been critical of both Trump and current Democratic House leaders.
"Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came," Trump tweeted. "Then come back and show us how ... it is done."
'HE RELIES ON RACISM'
All four of the congresswomen are U.S. citizens. Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley and Tlaib were born in the United States while Omar, a Somali refugee, arrived in 1992.
"He relies on racism, division and anti-immigrant sentiment to consolidate power because he does not have a positive vision for the future of America," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.
Ocasio-Cortez, who has clashed with fellow Democrats she views as insufficiently progressive, said she thought the attacks were deliberate.
"I think there's a strategy to divide the country because the more this country is divided the more he benefits from it," she said.
Trump's remarks come as he has intensified his long-running campaign to restrict immigration. Anticipated raids targeting illegal immigrants failed to materialize over the weekend but the administration on Monday said it would tighten asylum rules.
Most of Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress had little public reaction to the tweets.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime Trump golf partner and adviser, called the four congresswomen "socialist" and "anti-Semitic" on Fox News on Monday, but he also called on Trump to stop making such personal attacks.
"Aim higher ... Take on their policies. The bottom line here is this is a diverse country," Graham said, adding he had spoken to Trump.
Senator Susan Collins, a centrist Republican up for re-election in Maine next year, called Trump's comments "way over the line" and said he should delete them.
None of the top four Republican leaders in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, or their representatives had any immediate comment.
Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, also backed Trump in television interviews on Monday.
Trump is seeking re-election next year after his 2016 victory, which drew heavily on attacks against immigrants and has since stoked racial tensions nationwide.
His tweets follow days of reported tensions between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and more progressive members of her caucus as they seek to build on their 2018 midterm victories.
Several Democratic presidential candidates seeking to challenge Trump blasted the tweets as "racist."