This week, President Donald Trump spoke out against the often criticized, newly in office progressive Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D), who promptly fired back on Twitter by pointing out how off-base Trump is in acting like he’s in a place to throw rhetorical stones from his metaphorical glass house and he’s the one who probably should not be in office.
Along with three of her progressive colleagues — all of whom are first-term Congresswomen of color — Omar has been in the news again lately after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tried to shut down the public criticism they’ve lobbed at the Democratic Party, asking them to stop. Trump offered what some might call a roundabout defense of Pelosi’s position, but Omar wasn’t having it. She shared, addressing Trump directly:
‘If one-tenth of what they say about you is true, you shouldn’t be in office… next’
If one-tenth of what they say about you is true, you shouldn’t be in office… next 💁🏽♀️ https://t.co/zI9T9nyZ6I
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 12, 2019
Trump had re-upped waves of complaints about Omar by flatly asserting that she should not be in office. Although the context for those remarks was just a brief conversation with reporters, he has personally in the past criticized the Congresswoman for supposedly minimizing the impact of 9/11 (she didn’t) and for supposedly being an anti-Semite. In the reality of the latter case, she simply pointed out the pervasiveness of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States and in the process, used what some saw as anti-Semitic tropes, which she bluntly apologized for. In other words, Trump’s argument has little to no basis in reality — which is definitely a theme with him, since The Washington Post reported that he lied more than 10,000 times in his first little more than two years in office.
Trump is definitely not the first conservative to complain about Omar. Just in recent days, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has attracted attention for whining on his show that Omar supposedly represents a failure of the U.S. immigration system. As he put it, discussing her background as an immigrant from Somalia, the United States “rescued Ilhan Omar,” and “she said thanks by showering us with contempt.” Apparently then to Carlson, the people of the United States live in some kind of dictatorship where absolute deference to leadership is mandatory and criticism and activism is forbidden. Who knew.
Check out Twitter’s response.
Featured Image via screenshot
