Rep. Ilhan Omar Says Republicans Scapegoating Her to Defend Inaction on Greene: Their Base Is Now ‘Cowards,’ ‘Grifters,’ ‘Looney Tunes’
Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN) called out House Republicans for engaging in desperate whataboutism by dragging her into outrage over QAnon-believing Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (GA) incendiary rhetoric and past embrace of racist tropes and conspiracy theories.
Omar has been a lightning rod of criticism since arriving in Congress two years ago, partly for her outspoken anti-Trump rhetoric, but also for incendiary comments which has included trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes — which she apologized for. But her role as a popular right-wing boogeyman, she told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, made her a convenient foil for Republicans looking to deflect attention from Greene openly supporting the execution of high-profile Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi as recently as 2019.
On Wednesday, Greene tweeted out a long, unapologetic thread about her past incendiary comments as well as a fundraising appeal atop a picture of Omar. The Democratic rep, in turn, snarkily quote-tweeted a response to the demagoguery with one word: “subtle.”
Subtle https://t.co/IijfVJUFPH
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 3, 2021
“Did you expect that you would be pulled into this? Because you have become kind of the — a go-to figure in these moments for the Republican Party,” Hayes asked.
“Sadly, this is the Republican playbook. We saw it with Donald Trump,” said Omar, who was routinely targeted, insulted, and lied about by the former president. “Any time they are faced with consequences for their actions to undermine our democracy, they blame Muslims, they blame immigrants, they blame Black people, they blame women. I just happen to embody all of these identities and I want to make sure that we are clear on this. This is not about me and it should not be about me. This is about a member of the Republican caucus who has repeatedly incited violence and Republicans can’t just wave a magic wand and attack the Black congresswoman.”
“It was notable that there’s a fund raising effort using you,” Hayes pointed out. “Not Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi or House leadership. I think everyone understands what that is about. There’s this dynamic that functions now where she will use the attention. Right?… Like, do you think about breaking out of this cycle and how to do it if there’s any way out of it?”
“The Republicans truly have lost their way,” Omar proclaimed. “Their party is destroyed. Their base now is conspiracy theorists. It’s cowards, it’s opportunists, it’s grifters, and sadly they’re becoming the Looney Tunes. These are people we can’t take serious. They’re not here to do the people’s business. They are here to just be obstructionists and make a mockery of not just our government but our country.”
“This is insane,” the Minnesota congresswoman concluded. “No other work environment that is this toxic would sustain itself and we can’t sustain ourselves as members of Congress in this situation.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
