On the evening of July 16, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 240 to 187 to formally condemn the sitting president's words as racist.

Most Republicans voted no and said nothing. Dan Meuser asked for time to speak.

He got a minute and a half from Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, walked to the microphone, and opened with this:

"Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H. Res. 489, the latest legislative attack on the President."

That is the whole story in one sentence. A resolution about what the president said to four women of color who serve in Congress was, to Meuser, an attack on the president.

What Trump actually said

Two days earlier, on July 14, Trump posted a series of messages about "'Progressive' Democrat Congresswomen" — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, Pressley in Cincinnati, Tlaib in Detroit. Omar was born in Somalia, came here at age 12, and became a citizen. All four are American citizens. All four were elected by American voters.

Here is what he wrote, as reported at the time:

"Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."

"These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!"

Go back where you came from. It is the oldest line in the book, and every American who has ever heard it aimed at them knows exactly what it means.

What the resolution actually said

It is worth reading what Meuser voted against, because it was not a censure, not an impeachment, and not a punishment. It cost the president nothing.

The text of H. Res. 489 opens with Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and a long passage from Ronald Reagan's last speech as president about the Statue of Liberty. Then it resolves that the House:

"believes that immigrants and their descendants have made America stronger, and that those who take the oath of citizenship are every bit as American as those whose families have lived in the United States for many generations"

"strongly condemns President Donald Trump's racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should 'go back' to other countries"

That's it. Naturalized citizens are every bit as American as anyone else, and telling them to go back is wrong. Meuser voted no.

He wouldn't answer reporters. Then he asked for the microphone.

Before the vote, WHYY went member by member through Pennsylvania's congressional delegation asking each one where they stood. Their entry for the 9th District:

"Freshman Congressman Dan Meuser, a Republican representing Pa.'s 9th district including Hershey and a sizeable chunk of Pa.'s coal region, didn't post to Twitter or Facebook regarding the president's comments. His office did not respond to requests for comment."

So when a reporter asked him to say something about the president telling members of Congress to go back where they came from, he had nothing. No statement. No callback.

Two days later, with a vote on the board and cameras rolling, he had plenty. Here is his floor speech, in the Congressional Record, delivered on the House floor:

"In the last few days, Democratic Members of this House have attacked the President with claims of racism. Some have even said and then walked back similar comments referring to the Democratic House Speaker. None of those accusations are based in fact."

He called the four congresswomen's press conference "at best, political theater." He said the real debate in the country "will continue to be socialism versus American exceptionalism." When his 90 seconds ran out, Collins gave him another 30 to finish:

"This ridiculous slander does a disservice to our Nation and to the American people, and I, like many, am tired of it. I urge a 'no' vote on the resolution aimed purely at harassing the President of the United States."

He posted the same message on Twitter that night: "I strongly oppose Democrat leadership's latest effort to harass @realDonaldTrump."

Read the speech twice and you'll notice what is missing from it. Meuser never says the words were fine. He never defends them, never explains them, never quotes them. He argues about who is being harassed. The tweets themselves — the actual thing on the floor that night — he never touches.

A Republican from Bucks County managed it

Four Republicans in the entire House voted to condemn the remarks. One of them was from Pennsylvania: Brian Fitzpatrick, of the 1st District, who put it plainly the same night.

"The language and tone being used by so many in our country needs to change. The Hatfield versus McCoy brand of politics must end. Democrats and Republicans need to start treating each other respectfully and like human beings."

So it could be done. A Republican from Bucks County, facing the same primary voters and the same president, found it possible to say that telling colleagues to go back where they came from is wrong.

Meuser chose the other thing — and he chose it loudly, on his feet, on the record.

He was not alone in Pennsylvania. Mike Kelly, from the 16th District, voted no too. Asked about the tweets by a reporter in a Capitol hallway, Kelly explained that he couldn't be offended because "I'm a person of color ... I'm white". And Missouri's Jason Smith voted no six months after he yelled "Go back to Puerto Rico!" at a Latino colleague standing in the well of that same House floor.

"Matters of real substance"

The most revealing line in Meuser's speech is the one that sounds most reasonable. He said the House should address this and then:

"move on to engage in the work and the matters of real substance and importance to the people of our country, rather than baseless name-calling and offensive lectures."

Fair enough. Let's look at the matters of real substance he got to.

In July 2025 he voted for Trump's budget bill. By the Joint Economic Committee's district-level estimate, that law will strip health coverage from about 25,542 people in his own 9th District — 16,342 of them on Medicaid.

The same bill cut food assistance. In PA-09, 47,877 households rely on SNAP — about 15% of all households in the district, including 19,844 households with children, according to USDA data.

And when constituents in that district asked to talk to him about any of it, he said no. They have shown up every Monday morning for over a year asking for one open town hall, and he told a reporter he won't do it because he doesn't want to "basically be a piñata" — that it's just "the same 40 people."

Six years ago he had 90 seconds and used them to defend the president from an accusation. Since then he's had seven years of "real substance" and used it to take health care and food help away from the people who sent him, while refusing to stand in a room and answer for it.

The pattern

This is not a one-off from a nervous freshman. It's the same move he has made every time the president needed cover.

In December 2020 he signed the amicus brief in Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to throw out his own state's presidential election results. At 3:08 in the morning on January 7, 2021, hours after the mob was cleared out of the Capitol, he voted to reject Pennsylvania's electoral votes. And this month he spent more than an hour explaining that vote to a closed meeting of about 40 people — while still refusing to debate the woman running against him.

The through line is simple. When Trump does something indefensible, Dan Meuser does not defend it. He changes the subject to how unfairly Trump is being treated, and then he votes.

In July 2019 the subject was whether an American citizen elected to Congress can be told to go back where she came from. Two hundred and forty members of the House said no, she cannot.

Meuser was one of 187 who wouldn't say it.

We deserve better.

Sources

• Congressional Record, July 16, 2019 — Rep. Meuser's floor remarks on H. Res. 489 (U.S. Government Publishing Office)
• House Roll Call 482, July 16, 2019 — H. Res. 489, passed 240-187 (Meuser: No) (Office of the Clerk)
• Pa.'s Fitzpatrick votes with Dems to condemn Trump's tweets — Pennsylvania Capital-Star, July 16, 2019
• Pa. Dems, some in GOP criticize Trump's 'go back' tweets — WHYY, July 2019

Photo: Dan Meuser, 118th Congress official portrait (Wikimedia Commons).