US lawmakers on Thursday killed an attempt to impeach US President Donald Trump over his “racist remarks” against four Democratic Congresswomen.

The House on Wednesday voted 332-95 to table the bill, signifying a deeply divided Democratic Party on whether to impeach Trump, especially after he fired racially charged tweets at progressive lawmakers that invoked an outcry from both the sides of the aisle.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to persuade fellow Democratic lawmakers that impeaching Trump was not the best strategy, but frustration against the Trump administration over immigration policies, obstruction of justice allegations and personal attacks on political opponents gave a sizable portion of House Democrats enough reason to rebel against the party leadership and back impeachment proceedings.

Early on Tuesday, US House of Representatives passed a bill to condemn US President Donald Trump for his xenophobic attack on four minority Democratic Congresswomen.

The bill, titled “Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at members of Congress,” was a reaction to a string of Trump’s tweets that had told four Congresswomen of colour to “go back” to the “places from which they came”, according to reports.

The targeted Congresswomen were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. While Omar was born in Somalia and later moved to Minnesota, the other three were born in the US.

President Trump tweeted on Sunday, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came”.

During a press briefing outside the White House on Monday, Trump said, “If you are not happy here, you can leave”.

The remarks received criticism from the Democratic Party, and many Republican lawmakers also said such statements were inappropriate.

Trump then lashed out at those who criticised his series of tweets as “racist”, saying that it “doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me”.

Although Trump did not name anyone in his tweets, he had last week referred to Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Representative, when he was defending Nancy Pelosi.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are currently 52 voting members in the House and 16 members in the Senate who are immigrants or children of immigrants, most of them are Democrats.