Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) bashed former President Barack Obama – essentially calling him a murderer for his drone strike program – and compared his policies to President Trump, saying they are just as bad but are just “more polished.”

She told Politico that the Obama administration was responsible for the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border, the “droning of countries around the world,” and that the 44th president “operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.”

The following is via Politico:

“Omar slammed Obama’s “hope and change” message as more smoke and mirrors than anything concrete, saying, like Trump, his immigration policies involved detaining children at the southern border and he made heavy use of lethal drone strikes overseas.

We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar told Politico. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

Omar later tried to backpedal and blame the media for distorting her words.

“Exhibit A of how reporters distort words. I’m an Obama fan! I was saying how Trump is different from Obama, and why we should focus on policy not politics. This is why I always tape my interviews,” she tweeted, attaching an audio recording of the interview.

However, she later deleted the tweet, and for good reason: In an audio file attached to the tweet, it showed she was actually quoted accurately!

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) just deleted this tweet

In an interview with Politico, she suggested that Obama was a murderer and made other attacks on him

Omar then claimed she never said that and tweeted out an audio link of the interview

The link showed she *did* say those things pic.twitter.com/GjmMvWefRe

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) March 9, 2019

“I think for many of us, we think of ourselves as Democrats. But many of the ways that our Democratic leaders have conducted themselves within the system is not one that we are all proud of,” she said in the recording.

“You know, I will talk about the family separation or caging of kids and then people will point out that this was wrong – I mean this was Obama. And you know I’ll say something about the droning of countries around the world and people will say that was Obama. And all of that is very true. What is happening now is very different. A lot is happening with secrecy. It’s happening with the feel-good polished way of talking about it.

“And when we talk about waking people up from complacency, it’s to say that we can’t be only upset with Trump because he’s not a politician who sells us his policies in the most perfect way. His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” she continued.

“And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile, so that we can understand the kind of negative impact, or positive impact, they will have on us for generations.”

Exhibit A of how politicians use the media as a straw man to avoid owning what they said.

Your tape…supports what I wrote 100%. So does my longer tape. It's beyond dispute.

Next time, a phone call from your office before the Twitter ambush would be appreciated. https://t.co/eb2grgn5Cd

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) March 8, 2019

The latest controversy comes amid the fallout of Omar’s anti-Semitic comments regarding Jews and Israel.

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