THE King of Twitter issued a Presidential decree in his usual fashion yesterday and mounted a defence of his controversial remarks about four Congresswomen who he told to go back to their own countries.

Accused of racism from even within his own Republican Party, Donald Trump went on the defensive with the only method he knows – attack.

Far from backing down about what he said about the Congresswomen – Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib – Trump tweeted: “Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”

Then, even by Trumpian standards, the day went from surreal to bizarre when he was asked at a press conference if he meant they should leave the USA.

Trump said: “It’s up to them. Wherever they want – or they can stay. But they should love our country. They shouldn’t hate our country. I have clips right here. The most vile, horrible statements about our country. About Israel. About others.

“It’s up to them. Do what they want. They can leave. They can stay. They should love our country and they should work for the good of our country.”

For the record, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley won’t have far to go if they go home – they were all born in the USA.

Trump had said the four should go home to their “totally broken and crime-infested places”. This will annoy the good citizens of The Bronx in New York where Ocasio-Cortez was born to an American father, who was the son of an immigrant, and an immigrant mother – just like a certain Donald Trump.

The National:

Omar, above, would have to go back to Mogadishu in Somalia, which she left as a refugee at the age of 12, but she has been resident in the US for longer than first lady Melania Trump, who was keeping her feelings on the issue to herself yesterday.

Gohomegate just will not go away. As The National went to press, the House of Representatives was preparing to discuss a Democratic Party resolution condemning Trump’s tweets, with the Republican leadership letting it be known they expect all their members to vote against the resolution.

We then got back to the surreal again when presidential adviser Kelly Anne Conway defended Trump, and in doing so, questioned a reporter’s ethnicity.

Andrew Feinberg, a White House reporter for Breakfast Media, asked: “So what ‘countries’ was the president referring to, then?

Conway stunned the press corps with this exchange: “What’s your ethnicity?”

Feinberg: “Uh, why is that relevant?”

Conway: “Because I’m asking you a question. My ancestors are from

Ireland and Italy.”

Feinberg: “My ethnicity is not relevant to the question.”

Conway: “It is, because you’re asking about ... he said ‘originally’. He said ‘originally from’.”

That must have made for interesting conversation in the Conway household last night as her husband George wrote in The Washington Post: “No matter how much I found [Trump] ultimately unfit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt about being a racist.

“No matter how much I came to dislike him, I didn’t want to think that the president of the United States is a racial bigot. But Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president.”

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt condemned Trump’s remarks but have refused to call him a racist.

According to a top historian in the USA, Trump has joined a super league of racist presidents.

Jon Meacham, an expert on the presidency, said: “What the president has done here is yet again, because I think he did it after Charlottesville, and I think he did it frankly when he was pushing the birther lie about President Obama, is he has joined Andrew Johnson as the most racist president in American history.”

As of last night, most bookmakers had Trump as evens favourite to win next year’s presidential election.