Missouri Democrat defies calls to resign after post
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal was adamant Friday that she isn’t resigning over a Facebook post calling for President Donald Trump’s assassination.
Chappelle-Nadal, a University City Democrat, has faced calls by Missouri’s top Democrats and Republicans demanding she resign from the legislature over a comment she posted on her personal Facebook Thursday: “I hope Trump is assassinated.”
Among those calling for her resignation were the chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill.
Chappelle-Nadal deleted the comment and said posting it was a mistake. She said she posted the comment out of frustration with Trump’s statements about recent events in Charlottesville, Va., where an alleged white supremacist drove his car into a crowd near the city’s downtown mall, killing a 32-year-old woman.
But in a series of tweets following the calls from her fellow Democrats to resign, she struck a defiant tone.
“I am not resigning,” she said. “When (people of color) are respected by this (White House) & they are willing to do real work, I’ll sit down with them. People are traumatized!”
She then retweeted statements of support along with racist comments she began receiving after news broke about her Facebook post. One person sent her a message on Twitter that was just the N-word over and over again from a Twitter account called “KillMaria69.”
She also tweeted a link to “I Stand With Maria” website.
“Out of anger and frustration, I said something that could have been reframed,” she said on the website. “And I refuse to shy away from the hypocrisy and chaos our country is enduring under Trump.”
But the calls for her resignation grew louder Friday. Joining the chorus late Thursday was House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty, a Kansas City Democrat and the highestranking black lawmaker in Missouri.
“Suggestions of violence have no place in our political discourse, and an elected official who expresses hope for someone’s murder has forfeited the right to hold office,” McCann Beatty said. “Given state Sen. Maria ChappelleNadal’s repugnant social media post suggesting the president should be assassinated, she must resign.”