Rep Ilhan Omar Receiving an Increasing Number of Death Threats after Trump's Tweet about Her

Rep. Ilhan Omar Receiving Increasing Number of Death Threats after Trump’s Tweets

By Kelly Frazier --
16 Apr 2019 --

Trump’s 9/11 video footage with clips of Ilhan Omar has been labeled as propaganda.

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of the pioneer Muslim U.S. Congress members, has claimed a social media post by President Trump has resulted in a rise of death threats against her.[/tweetit] She accused Trump of stoking the timbers of right-wing extremism and said it must stop. Things are now so bad that Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, announced a brand new “security assessment” so the lawmaker can be protected from harm.

Rep. Ilhan Omar Receiving Increasing Number of Death Threats after Trump’s Tweets[/tweetthis]

For President Trump, stigmatizing Muslims with the terrorist tag has reaped rich rewards. In his media interviews, the president has repeatedly asserted that Muslims hate the United States. Now barely 19 months to go before the 2020 elections, Trump is breathing on the same whistle again. He has a specific target, and that is Representative Ilhan Omar.

WE WILL NEVER FORGET! pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019

Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019

Omar comes from a Somali refugee family whose members received U.S. asylum when she was in her teenage years. The president has found a perfect punching bag in Omar: a Democrat with a progressive outlook who has publicly embraced the BDS or Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. This viewpoint has already made the Minnesota Democrat a divisive figure among Democrats themselves.

Trump and his marketing team are trying to push Omar, a relatively unknown figure in the national stage, to be a prominent figure in the Democratic party, regardless of her real position. The president has described Omar as “terrible” to reporters. The Trump campaign is not restricted to labeling the Democrat; it has also issued videos implying a sinister design. The Republican-released video has graphic images of the September 11 attacks, focusing on the collapse of the World Trade Center. The video quotes multiple times from a speech Omar gave during an event sponsored by Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She was recorded describing CAIR’s origins and the dangers of Muslims losing civil liberties. Trump’s video concentrated only on the phrase “some people did something” meaning that Omar does not regard 9/11 as a major event. The screen of the video also flashed in capital letters “WE WILL NEVER FORGET.” True to his strategy, Trump again attacked Omar on April 15, describing her actions as “out of control” and urged Pelosi to examine the Minnesota Representative’s comments which he said were anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.