Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., said in an interview Thursday her fellow freshman colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar’s dismissive remarks about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were taken out of context.
“I’m not for policing people. You know that’s what they’re doing to us women of color. I mean think about it. This is a diverse class. They’ve never had two Muslim women,” she said, shaking her head, in an MSNBC interview.
.@RashidaTlaib says America is not ready for leaders like her and @IlhanMN
“They’ve never had a woman who was a refugee. These are real life impactful stories that come with us. This is not just a congress that looks differently, we serve differently.” pic.twitter.com/y7YrrgxB9Z
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 11, 2019
Omar, D-Minn., is yet again the subject of criticism over controversial and dismissive comments about the terrorists who killed roughly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Minnesota lawmaker was speaking to a Muslim advocacy lobbying group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, last month when she referred to the terrorists as “some people” who “did something.”
“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,” Omar said at the event.
Reacting to Omar’s comments, The New York Post published a Thursday cover with a photo of the American Airlines jet crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2001, with the headline “Here’s your something.”
The New York Post’s cover for Thursday calls out Ilhan Omar for trivializing the 9/11 terrorist attacks as “some people did something” pic.twitter.com/xToghXSGw5
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 11, 2019
But Tlaib, who also came to Omar’s defense when she was accused of making anti-Semitic comments against supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship, insisted the real controversy is people spending time scrutinizing the words and actions of a Muslim woman who sits in the House.
“These are real life impact stories that come with us because our lenses are so different. This is not just bout a Congress that looks differently but we serve differently. We talk about these issues differently. But its an institution that is just not ready for people like us,” she said.
In the interview, Tlaib also falsely claimed that she is the first Palestinian American to serve in the House.
Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican who, like Tlaib, is a member of the Michigan congressional delegation, is also a Palestinian American. He was elected to Congress in 2010 as part of the Tea Party movement.
Tlaib and Omar were the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress.
