Former US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has spoken out against Donald Trump following his repeated racist attacks on her.
“When I was young, someone intentionally misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation,” Chao said in a statement to Politico. “They don’t know about that, which says more about them than they will ever know about Asian Americans.”
Chao, who served Trump, has previously been reserved in his criticism of the former president, who has repeatedly taunted Chao and his wife, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Trump referred to Chao, who was born in Taiwan, as his “husband who loves China,” among other derogatory terms Chao asked the media not to use.
Trump used a racist epithet to describe Chao earlier this week while throwing out conspiracy theories to attack her and her husband.
Did Chao “have nothing to do with the Classified Documents Joe Biden sent and stored in Chinatown?” he asked in a Truth Social post. “His wife, Old Broken Crow, is very close to Biden, the Democrats, and, of course, China. She gives him everything he wants!”
The post comes amid a spate of mass shootings targeting California’s Asian American community, and in the wake of anti-Asian discrimination and violence linked to the coronavirus pandemic. On Saturday, 11 people were killed in Monterey Park during the Lunar New Year celebration. On Monday, seven more people were shot dead in Half Moon Bay.
In the past, Chao has called Trump’s comments racist but stopped short of condemning him. “They’re trying to raise us up. They’re saying all kinds of amazing things, and I don’t intend to answer any of them,” she said in an interview last month. McConnell has also largely declined to comment on Trump’s swipe at his wife.