President Donald Trump criticized U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and her native country of Somalia in the wake of a failed attempt by her colleagues to censure her in the House this week.
Four Republicans joined Democrats Wednesday to table that resolution, which would have also removed her from committees. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, brought it forward because of an interview Omar did in response to conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week and reposts she made on social media.
The four-term congresswoman, who represents Minneapolis and some close suburbs, said in a note to constituents that the measure mischaracterized her words and her views.
“I have never supported political violence, and I have always spoken out against it. Attempts to twist my words into something they are not are deeply harmful not just to me, but to our ability to have honest debates in Congress,” she said in an email about a town hall event.
Mr. Trump on Thursday said she is “terrible” and should be impeached. He also slammed Somalia, which Omar fled as a child before coming to the U.S. as a refugee. She later became an American citizen and first ran for Congress in 2018.
“How are they doing? How’s their government? Do they have a president? Do they have a council? Do they have anything? Do they have police? I love these people that come from a place with nothing. Nothing, no anything. And then they tell us how to run our country,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I think if she got censured, that’s great. If she got impeached, that’s even better.”
Omar’s office declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks or his posts on social media.
In one post he said, “what scum we have in our country, telling us what to do and how to do it” after criticizing Somalia as a country plagued by poverty, civil war and corruption.
Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota, who himself emigrated to the U.S. from Somalia in the early 1990s, said many Somali Minnesotans supported President Trump this past election. The president won 12% of the vote in Minneapolis, a Democratic stronghold, but nearly double that figure in some heavily East African precincts, according to an analysis by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Hussein called Mr. Trump’s remarks “a political statement,” but said they’ve also caused alarm. “Anytime something like this happens, we as a community are on guard, partially because we have seen political violence that took the life of Charlie Kirk, that took the life of [Rep.] Melissa Hortman, that took the life of many others, and we’re seeing those threats,” he explained. “And so that’s why we are a lot more alarmed when these things are publicly played out.”
Omar has faced threats in the past. Two years ago, a man in Florida was convicted and sentenced for sending an email threatening to kill her.
“Anything can happen, anytime. That’s why it’s important that those around President Trump should remind him that we are in a moment where we just lost a political figure like Charlie Kirk. We can’t be in this moment of continuous contention that rises to a point where individuals may kill,” Hussein said.
CBS NEWS
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