Top Democrats on Saturday rushed to defend Rep. Ilhan Omar after President Donald Trump retweeted video that was edited to suggest she was being dismissive of the significance of the worst terrorist assault on U.S. soil.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolded Trump for using the “painful images of 9/11 for a political attack” against the first-term Minnesota Democrat.
And presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, campaigning in New Hampshire, accused Trump of “trying to incite violence and to divide us, and every political leader should speak out against that.”
The video Trump retweeted Friday pulls a snippet of Omar’s recent speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in which she described the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as “some people did something,” and includes news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the Twin Towers. Trump also tweeted, “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
WE WILL NEVER FORGET! pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019
Omar’s remark has drawn criticism largely from political opponents and conservatives who say the lawmaker, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, offered a flippant description of the assailants and the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Neither Trump’s tweet nor the video included her full quote or the context of her comments.
Omar told CAIR in Los Angeles that many Muslims saw their civil liberties eroded after the attacks, and she advocated for activism.
“For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it,” she said in the March 23 speech, according to video posted online. “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”
CAIR was founded in 1994, according to its website, but its membership skyrocketed after the attacks.
Many Republicans and conservative outlets expressed outrage at Omar’s remarks. Fellow Democrats, including some who have disagreed with Omar in the past, defended her.
“First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as ‘some people who did something,’” tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. The retired Navy SEAL lost his right eye in 2012 in an explosion in Afghanistan.
“Here’s your something,” the New York Post blared on its cover beneath a photograph of the flaming towers.
Pelosi, who was in Germany visiting U.S. troops Saturday, said in a statement that “the memory of 9/11 is sacred ground” and should always be discussed “with reverence.” The California Democrat said it is wrong for Trump to “fan the flames to make anyone less safe.”
Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President’s explicit attack today.@IlhanMN’s life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress.
We must speak out.
“First they came…” pic.twitter.com/ygOX1vhE9j
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 12, 2019
Omar didn’t appear to be backing down.
She tweeted a quote from President George W. Bush, who said days after the attacks: “The people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
“Was Bush downplaying the terrorist attack?” Omar tweeted. “What if he was a Muslim.”
Several of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates condemned Trump’s tweet.
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, said the Republican president’s tweet was an “incitement to violence” against Omar, who is Muslim-American, and others like her. O’Rourke, campaigning in South Carolina, likened the tweet to Trump’s rhetoric about Mexicans, described in the past by Trump as murderers and rapists. O’Rourke said “there is a cost and there is a consequence” to Trump’s comments.
The President is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman—and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. It's disgusting. It's shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 13, 2019
Warren, a Massachusetts senator, said Republican leaders in Congress “cannot take a pass on this, cannot look the other way and pretend it isn’t happening. It is happening. And those who don’t speak out in the Republican leadership are complicit in what he is doing. It’s wrong.”
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar noted that a New York man recently was charged with threatening Omar’s life.
“The video the president chose to send out today will only incite more hate,” Klobuchar said. “You can disagree with her words — as I have done before — but this video is wrong. Enough.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Omar “won’t back down to Trump’s racism and hate, and neither will we.”
Another anti-Omar video re-tweeted by President Trump:
What kind of sick monster would find comedy in the words Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and compare those two terrorist organizations to America and the U.S. Army?
Rep. Ilhan Omar. That’s who. pic.twitter.com/YyyuddzGMi
— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) April 12, 2019
Omar repeatedly has pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory over Israel and the strength of the Jewish state’s influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn’t criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested American supporters of Israel “pledge allegiance” to a foreign country.
Her comments sparked an ugly episode among House Democrats after they responded with a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and the measure became a broader declaration against all forms of bigotry.
Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won't back down to Trump's racism and hate, and neither will we. The disgusting and dangerous attacks against her must end.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 13, 2019
For two years, this President has used the most powerful platform in the world to sow hate & division. He's done it again. Putting the safety of a sitting member of Congress @IlhanMN at risk & vilifying a whole religion is beyond the pale. I'll be blunt — we must defeat him.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) April 13, 2019
One of the ugly aftermaths of 9/11 that is too often ignored is the codified profiling of Muslim-Americans solely bc of their faith.
No-fly lists. Warantless mosque surveillance. All of it.
To fear+suspect all Muslims due to the actions of terrorists is bigotry. Plain & simple. https://t.co/gYgzAe6xGv
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 13, 2019
I’m sick that anyone, let alone the President of the United States, would weaponize 9/11, even more so to target a Muslim Member of Congress for political gain. Beyond reckless and morally bankrupt.
— Antonio Delgado (@DelgadoforNY) April 13, 2019
Enough is enough. No more silence, with NY Post and now Trump taking Ilhan’s words out of context to incite violence toward her, it’s time for more Dems to speak up. Clearly the GOP is fine with this shameful stunt, but we cannot stand by.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) April 12, 2019
My sister in service @IlhanMN is on my heart tonight. The occupant of the @WhiteHouse is putting her, her family, her team & Muslim Americans across the country in jeopardy. It’s unconscionable and I’m furious #IStandWithIlhan
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) April 13, 2019
The threats against the life of @IlhanMN make clear what is at stake if we fail to to do this, and to beat back hate in all all its forms.
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) April 13, 2019
Thank you for standing with me – against an administration that ran on banning Muslims from this country – to fight for the America we all deserve.💪🏽
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 13, 2019
Always working. Always doing her job. She will not be silenced or intimidated. We got her back. https://t.co/N7mwhtxScp
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) April 13, 2019
(AP)
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11 Responses
this lady is crazy! and the democrats are also crazy for defending her
Vote Democrat! This is what you get!
It is time for the normal American people to speak up. Do not defend these Muslims for their actions and speeches. What do the Dems want? Do they want forced Sharia law in this country? It will be too late to speak up then!!!
I love it!
All these years the Democrats have painted the Republicans as being the racists and anti-semites despite the Dems being the party of the Ku Klux Klan. (Nancy Pelosi worked shoulder-to-shoulder for 23 years beside a retired member of the Ku Klux Klan the “great senator” from the “great state” of West Virginia, Robert C. Byrd, a lifelong Democrat.)
They are finally showing their true colors.
Ahead of the 2020 election the Democrats will be spending their precious time defending Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar and their virulent hateful speech. Even the Jewish Dems cannot bring themselves to criticize this evil rhetoric.
They never dreamt that decades of playing the virtuous party would now come to an end as they become the party of hate.
Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.
Wake up call for American Jews. Time to move home to Eretz Yisroel.
The Democrats are getting so crazy liberal they’ll give Trump his second term because of fallout of born and bred Democrats being turned off by whats happening to the Democratic party.
The whole left has lost their minds. What must she do to warrant condemnation, openly advocate for jihad?
Truth is, this shouting match only helps the president. His approval ratings are at 53%, which means that most of the country sees these crazies for what they are, and the more they ramp up their rhetoric, the more people will. So they’re assuring Trump 2020.
Who is Omar, really? You will see in the following comments.
There are between 90 to 100 thousand Somalis in the State of Minnesota. In one of the video’s, in this YWN article, one can see how proud she is of Al Queda, of which she seems to adore. In another video, she comments “some people did something”. This comment trivializes the horrible attack on the twin towers & the USA. She seems proud of that act, done by “her” people. Here’s a headline from Fox News, re: the State she grew up in. “How Minneapolis’ Somali community became the terrorist recruitment capital of the US” – where she grew up, and it shows. From Somalia, the land that produced al-Shabab, and the incubator for many of its leaders, was al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI, or “Unity of Islam”), a militant Salafi group that peaked in the 1990s. after the fall of Said Barre’s 1969–1991 AIAI’s core was a band of Middle East–educated Somali extremists partly funded and armed by al-Qaeda’s chief, Osama bin Laden! Somalis in Minnesota have a high rate of college grads.
More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country (Fox News). Omar, spoke up for a group of six Somalis arrested in 2015 for trying to cross into Mexico, as part of a plan to join ISIS in Syria! As the case went to trial the following year, the then-state representative wrote a letter to the trial judge requesting “compassion” – and lighter sentencing on behalf of one of the Minnesota men, who was facing 30 years jail time. Fox News, Feb 6. All this explains her radical comments. She’s grew up with & is in deep sympathy with these Somalis. She shares their culture and radical beliefs. Her radical comments and behavior are normal for her. She represents her voter base! No big surprise.
Witj omar ilhans “slips of her tongue” from saying people pro israel are loyal to a foreign country (aka not loyal ameeicans) and that veteran congress members pro israel are bribed to and then that when moslem jihadists attack us soil murdering 3000 americans its ” someone did something” how many more slips of the tongue for her to stay on the foreign affairs commitee?!! This is why pres trump won!!!! Dems threatened to bring in many thousands of syrians and gladly increase democratic voters! Greatly increase south american illiterate migrants when rural americans need their jobs and we see through south america people mired in socialism kidnappings gang wars corruption and dictatorships while so far the usa stays stable! In europe where they have many millions of moslems there is real fear of terrorist attacks as they happen in the uk france germany belgium norway spain! And especially jews in europe feel unsafe!! Ilhan omar is quiet about palestinian terrorism from hamas or open terror support in the west bank and openly calls to boycott israel which has been boycotted since 1948 by moslems to destry her!And now the dems leave omar ilhan on the foreign affairs committee as she reveals her true colors in slip after slip!! She has no clue or she hopes americans dont!!!