Ilhan Omar Blames Town Hall Attack On Trump’s ‘Hateful Rhetoric’: ‘My Death Threats Skyrocket’

AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) blamed the attack she faced on Tuesday on President Donald Trump, telling reporters that “every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket.”

Omar was attacked at a town hall event, where she was charged at and sprayed with an unidentified liquid while speaking to supporters. At a news conference on Wednesday, Omar claimed her alleged attacker, Anthony Kazmierczak,was “upset that Trump’s order to deport Somalis was not yielding enough deportations of Somalis, so he wanted to come get the person he thought was protecting the Somalis.”

Neither the FBI, which took over the investigation on Wednesday, nor the Minneapolis police has commented on the motive for the seemingly premeditated attack.

The congresswoman directly tied the attack and other threats against her life to the president’s frequent and aggressive criticism of her.

“I became a freshman who nobody should have actually known I existed because I wielded no power to having the most death threats of any member of Congress,” she said. “To the point where I had to have six Capitol Police officers providing 24-hour detail to me and my family. And then [Joe] Biden got elected, and for four years it almost plummeted. Then he came back into office, and he resumed his vitriol. And now my death threats are the highest of the members of Congress.”

In the hours after the event, Omar struck a defiant tone– a sentiment she continued on Wednesday as she told press that “fear and intimidation doesn’t work on me.”

“I think my presence here should tell you that the fear and intimidation doesn’t work on me,” said Omar. “What the facts have shown since I’ve gotten into elected office is that every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket.”

Trump, for his part, suggested that Omar had orchestrated the attack, telling ABC’s Rachel Scott on Tuesday that he rarely thought about the congresswoman.

“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” the president told Scott.

Omar shot back at the president in her remarks on Wednesday, calling his comments “ironic.”

“I wouldn’t be where I am at today, having to pay for security, having the government to think about providing me security if Donald Trump wasn’t in office and if he wasn’t so obsessed with me,” she said. “It is ironic that just last night he was on stage moments before I was attacked talking about me, and then when asked about my attack, he said, ‘I don’t think about her.'”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!