On Friday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight” that when former President Trump and other members of the GOP publicly say her name, that leads to an increase in the death threats she receives.
Ilhan Omar: Trump, Republicans Mentioning My Name Causes Uptick of Death Threats – ‘They Have to Be Held Accountable‘ @IhanMN don't blame Republicans for your woes and tribulations by your own constituents – It is your foul Rhetoric & Woke Agendahttps://t.co/twIzuPx04d
— Old Man With A Pen (@ConservativeAd5) October 29, 2022
Omar made the comment while discussing the break-in attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband, Paul Pelosi. She said Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (GA) are to blame for the crime allegedly committed by 42-year-old suspect David DePape.
“We should not live in fear just because we have decided to serve our country, our constituents, and want the ability to shape the way in which our country is governed,” Omar told host Alex Wagner. “What the Republicans have put out in those statements that you read to me – I just want the audience to realize that it is dangerous. It is delusional, and it is disturbing.”
“This level of deflection that the Republicans are doing really moves us away from actual, honest accountability in this conversation,” she added.
It was at this point in the interview that Omar began to blame specific members of the Republican Party.
“Whether it is Marjorie Taylor Greene, again, who uses imagery in her campaigning with a rifle to our heads, whether it is Lauren Boebert, who says that we are terrorists and we are there to blow ourselves up, or whether it is countless numbers of Republicans, starting from the former president who constantly incite hate and violence, I will tell you,” Omar said. “I can trace the uptick of the level of death threats that I get from their rallies or any sort of Fox News or any right-wing media hits that mention my name and says that I am un-American.”
“There is a direct link to that uptick,” she emphasized.
Omar went on to say that her office received a “huge uptick” in death threats this past summer and that Republicans need to take responsibility for their reckless rhetoric.
“They have to hold themselves accountable,” she said. “And the American people need to recognize that what is happening to members of Congress, whether it is Republicans who are recently retired, or have been voted out in the primaries, whether it is what just happened to Paul Pelosi and the fear that Speaker Pelosi and her family will live with for the really long time, and the trauma they have experienced, what myself and others have experienced, all of that has a direct linkage to what Republicans are saying and doing to us every single day.”
