US President Donald Trump boosted his white nationalist credentials today, praising supporters who chanted: “Send her back” in reference to Muslim congresswomen at a rally yesterday. 

Mr Trump used his platform in North Carolina to heap abuse on the four Democratic members of the House of Representatives, fuelling a row that began when he told them on Sunday to go back to their own “broken and crime-infested” countries. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib are all US citizens and all but one were born in the country. The exception is Ms Omar, who arrived in 1992 as a refugee from Somalia.  

The president’s inital rant was triggered by them criticising the conditions they had witnessed in US concentration camps for migrants last week.  

“So Representative Omar blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks on our country, saying that terrorism is a reaction to our involvement in other people’s affairs,” he said, accusing her of supporting al-Qaida, Venezuela and other enemies of the US. 

The mostly white crowd that packed out the basketball stadium booed and hissed at the mention of Ms Omar’s name. Then as Mr Trump claimed that she “has a history of launching vicious, anti-semitic screeds,” the crowd began their chants of “send her back.” 

Later that evening, he tweeted: “Just returned to the White House from the great state of North Carolina. What a crowd and what great people. The enthusiasm blows away our rivals on the radical left.”

In response, Ms Omar, who on Tuesday introduced a resolution to protect the right to engage in boycotts against Israel, tweeted a poem by US author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. 

“You may shoot me with your words / You may cut me with your eyes / You may kill me with your hatefulness / But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

Left-wing Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders commented: “Trump is stoking the most despicable and disturbing currents in our society. And that very hatred and racism fuels him. 

“We must fight together to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of our country.”

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors decided not to charge the white New York police officer who choked to death unarmed African-America father Eric Garner in 2014. 

Daniel Pantaleo was filmed keeping Mr Garner in an illegal choke hold as four other officers forced him to the ground.

In video footage which spread online, Mr Garner can be heard repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe” until he passed out.