A man interrupted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as she was speaking at a town hall event and sprayed her with an unknown substance.
Omar was hosting a town hall event in North Minneapolis on Tuesday evening when a man in a black jacket rushed toward the podium and sprayed her with a liquid. Security guards grabbed the man as he pointed at the congresswoman and tackled him to the ground.
Omar was speaking about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when the man rushed toward her.
“Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment,” Omar said seconds before the man sprayed her. A video of the incident shows the man appear to say, “She’s not resigning,” as he began yelling at Omar before he was tackled. U.S. Capitol Police said the man was in custody and would face “the most serious charges” for the attack.
“Tonight, a man is in custody after he decided to assault a Member of Congress — an unacceptable decision that will be met with swift justice. We are grateful for the rapid response of onsite security and our local law enforcement partners. We are now working with our federal partners to see this man faces the most serious charges possible to deter this kind of violence in our society,” the Capitol Police said.
Omar insisted on continuing the event.
“We will continue. These f***ing a**holes are not going to get away with it,” Omar said.
“Here is the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand: We are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us,” she continued.
Omar’s office said the man sprayed the liquid out of a syringe and that the congresswoman was “okay.”
“During her town hall, an agitator tried to attack the Congresswoman by spraying an unknown substance with a syringe. Security and the Minneapolis Police Department quickly apprehended the individual. He is now in custody. The Congresswoman is okay. She continued with her town hall because she doesn’t let bullies win,” Omar’s office said.
Asked after the event about her condition, Omar said, “I’m going to go figure if I am [OK], but I feel OK. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are in elected office or not, to [not] allow these people to intimidate us, to make us not fight for our constituents and for the country we love.”
“I’ve survived war, and I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think they can throw at me because I’m built that way,” she added.
Omar has been an outspoken critic of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations surge in the Twin Cities, repeatedly calling for Noem’s impeachment.
The Minneapolis congresswoman has drawn the ire of her conservative colleagues in Congress and Trump administration officials throughout this year for rebuffing the administration’s policies in Minnesota, though one House Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), immediately condemned the attack.
“I am deeply disturbed to learn that Rep. Ilhan Omar was attacked at a town hall today. Regardless of how vehemently I disagree with her rhetoric — and I do — no elected official should face physical attacks. This is not who we are,” Mace, who is running for governor of South Carolina, wrote on X.
Omar’s district has been at the center of the news cycle throughout the past several months, from the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal officers to the ICE operations surge and fraud scandal rocking Minnesota.
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The Capitol Police released its threat assessment case numbers for 2025 on Tuesday evening as the news of the attack on Omar broke. The agency investigated 14,938 threat concerns toward members of Congress, their staff, their families, and the Capitol grounds in 2025. This number increased from 9,474 cases in 2024. In the previous five years, this number was the highest in 2021 at 9,625 cases, which is over 35% lower than the 2025 case numbers.
The concerns include any “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications directed against Members of Congress, their families, staff, and the Capitol Complex,” according to the Capitol Police.
