Rep. Ilhan Omar said she would not dignify with a response President Trump’s assertion that she is pro-al Qaeda.
“I will not dignify it with an answer because I know that every single Islamophobe, every single person who is hateful, who is driven by an ideology of ‘othering’ as this president is, rejoices in us responding to that and us defending ourselves,” Omar said at a press conference Monday.
“I do not expect every time there is a white supremacist who attacks or there is a white man who kills in a school or in a movie theater, or in a mosque, or in a synagogue, I don’t expect my white community members to respond on whether they love that person or not. And so I think it is beyond time, it is beyond time to ask Muslims to condemn terrorists. We are no longer going to allow the dignification of such ridiculous — ridiculous statement,” she said.
Trump said earlier Monday, “I mean, I look at the one, I look at Omar, I don’t know her, I never met her. I hear the way she talks about al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has killed many Americans. She said you could hold your chest out. When I think of America, huh. When I think of al Qaeda, I can hold my chest out. When she talked about the World Trade Center being knocked down, some people, you remember the famous ‘some people.’ These are people that, in my opinion, hate our country.”
Trump repeated his claim later in the day on Twitter.
“Certain people hate our country,” Trump said. “They are anti-Israel, pro Al-Qaeda, and comment on the 9/11 attack, ‘some people did something.'”
….They are anti-Israel, pro Al-Qaeda, and comment on the 9/11 attack, “some people did something.” Radical Left Democrats want Open Borders, which means drugs, crime, human trafficking, and much more….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2019
Trump’s comment referenced a 2013 interview in which the Minnesota Democrat joked about the way people pronounced the terrorist group’s name.
This is the video of Ilhan Omar that Trump kept referencing while speaking to the press todaypic.twitter.com/tFv2rP7UOy
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) July 15, 2019
