Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) gave a speech on the House floor Monday in which he said that "every racist in America voted for Donald Trump" in 2016.
"Not to say that every American who voted for Donald Trump is a racist. We do know that every racist in America voted for Donald Trump. That's a problem," Jeffries said.
"We know part of it is the backlash that has often occurred whenever we've made progress in America, but this president has a responsibility to address the rise in hate crimes that have taken place on his watch," Jeffries added in a clip flagged by Breitbart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIRiOoIvo5M&feature=youtu.be
This is not the first time that Jeffries has linked Trump to racism. The New York Democrat nearly echoed the same comments word for word during a speech in early February.
"I'm not here to say that every American who voted for Donald Trump is a racist, but I do know that every racist in America voted for Donald Trump," Jeffries said.
The congressman tweeted out the comments from his official account.
Not every American who voted for Donald Trump is a racist, but every racist in America voted for Donald Trump #PresidentBannon pic.twitter.com/oA6mZ9Rc6t
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) February 1, 2017
Jeffries has frequently attacked Trump and his administration for being racist, linking them to the Jim Crow laws of the South between slavery and the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.
"Jim Crow might be dead," Jeffries said during a speech at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. in April. "He's got some nieces and nephews that are alive and well, and a few of them are running around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."