President Trump asked whether Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar should be criticizing the United States given that she arrived in the country after fleeing Somalia.
“She’s telling us how to run our country. How did you do where you came from? How was your country doing?” Trump asked, as the crowd booed during his rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night.
Trump jabbed Omar as part of a larger criticism of the so-called “Squad” of freshman congresswomen, including Omar and Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. He claimed that Omar was going to hand him a victory in the state of Minnesota.
Omar claimed that Trump was “obsessed” with her and noted that she was just 8 years old at the time that she fled Somalia as a refugee to the U.S. She also noted that, as a member of Congress, it is her job to share her opinion on how to run the country.
“Firstly, this is my country & I am a member of the House that impeached you,” she wrote. “Secondly, I fled civil war when I was 8. An 8-year-old doesn’t run a country even though you run our country like one.”
These cult-like rallies leave me wondering one thing: pic.twitter.com/58VjLl4II0
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 23, 2020
Many other Twitter users came to Omar’s defense and called Trump’s remarks “racist.”
This comment about Ilhan Omar is so vile and racist that the crowd is stunned silent. https://t.co/7OLkgwDtu5
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) September 23, 2020
Of course this is disgustingly racist.
But also worth noting: Trump’s family emigrated from Germany under the Kaiser, right before they instigated two world wars against the United States. And it doesn’t look like the Trumps learned anything about American values since then. https://t.co/LT0q3GQ9Lo
— David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) September 23, 2020
she fled civil war when she was 8, spent 4 years at a Kenyan refugee camp, got asylum in the US in 1995, & now serves in Congress.
we used to call things like this the American Dream, I believe. https://t.co/gEqIP9iACk
— Jesse Lehrich (@JesseLehrich) September 23, 2020
Trump was widely criticized in 2010 after he told members of the Squad to “go back” and fix the countries they are from when only Omar was born outside of the U.S. The House voted in favor of a resolution condemning Trump for the remarks shortly after he made them.
