House Democrat Collin Peterson Denounces Ilhan Omar: ‘She Doesn’t Belong in Our Party’

Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) denounced his colleague and fellow Minnesota Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar, as someone who “doesn’t belong” in the Democratic Party in response to a question shouted at him by a person with a cellphone camera.

Video of the exchange showed Peterson walking up to the House office buildings in Washington, D.C. as an unidentified man shouted at him. “Do you have any comment as to why you defended Ilhan Omar?” the man asked, referring to Omar as an “anti-Semite.”

“I don’t defend her. She doesn’t belong in our party,” Peterson responded.

It isn’t clear who took the video, which was first shared on social media by Carly Atchison, a staffer for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Peterson, who is seeking his 16th term in office this year, has faced an increasingly difficult political environment under President Donald Trump. The 76-year-old congressman won reelection in 2018 with 52.1 percent of the vote — an all-time low for Peterson — even as Trump won 61 percent of voters in the district next to 31 percent for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The 37-year-old Omar’s Minneapolis district has become increasingly liberal over the same period. She has also faced criticism from Democrats for making controversial statements, including for a comment she made describing the 9/11 terror attacks as an event in which “some people did something.” Peterson attempted to play down those remarks in an interview in April, saying, “I think she was trying to say that some people in her community feel like they’re being targeted.”

Trump has targeted Peterson’s district as one Republicans hope to win. He was speaking there at a rally in the city of Bemidji on September 18, the same evening news first broke that the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died.

Watch above via Twitter.