Ohio Sen. Portman criticizes Trump for calling Democrats ‘treasonous’

A day after President Donald Trump called Democrats “treasonous” for sitting silently during portions of his State-of-the-Union address, Sen. Rob Portman said he “would not have used the words.”

The Ohio Republican, who attended the event, said in a statement he shares “the disappointment that Democrats at the State of the Union speech did not respond favorably to excellent unemployment numbers.”

“Good economic news should be celebrated by everyone, and it is a sign of the partisan division in our country these days,” Portman said. “But we have to be careful about the language we use so we don’t create even more partisanship.”

During Trump’s visit to a suburban Cincinnati manufacturer Monday, he said Democrats’ lack of applause when he referred to historically low unemployment rates among blacks and Hispanics showed “they were like death, and un-American, un-American. Somebody said treasonous. Yeah, I guess, why not. Can we call that treasonous? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

The president said the lack of a positive reaction from Democrats “means they would rather see Trump do badly, OK, than our country do well.”

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