{"id":335905,"date":"2025-12-07T23:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/335905\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T23:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:17:07","slug":"ilhan-omar-says-trumps-anti-somali-tirade-completely-disgusting-ilhan-omar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/335905\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilhan Omar says Trump\u2019s anti-Somali tirade \u2018completely disgusting\u2019 | Ilhan Omar"},"content":{"rendered":"

US House member Ilhan Omar<\/a> on Sunday defended the Somali community in her Minnesota congressional district, saying it was \u201ccompletely disgusting\u201d when Donald Trump recently referred to them as garbage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are Americans that he is calling \u2018garbage,\u2019\u201d Omar, a Somalia-born Democrat, said<\/a> while responding to the president\u2019s remarks on CBS\u2019s Face the Nation. \u201cI think it is also really important for us to remember that this kind of hateful rhetoric \u2013 and this level of dehumanizing \u2013 can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those comments from Omar \u2013 who also spent some of her CBS interview discussing fraud cases involving Minnesota Somalis in recent years \u2013 served as replies to insults from Trump<\/a> during a cabinet meeting. Beside calling them \u201cgarbage\u201d, the president said Minnesota\u2019s Somali community should be sent back to Somalia.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at their nation,\u201d Trump also said. \u201cLook how bad their nation is. It\u2019s not even a nation. It\u2019s just people walking around killing each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country \u2013 billions and billions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration restricted all immigration cases for Somalis already in the US, along with people from 18 other countries. Community members expected the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area, where most Somalis in the state reside, to see increased immigration enforcement operations. And, as a consequence, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey recently signed an executive order<\/a> prohibiting federal, state and local officials from using city-owned parking lots, ramps, garages and lots for immigration enforcement operations.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Omar penned an op-ed<\/a> in the New York Times claiming that Trump was resorting to racist attacks because various campaign promises \u2013 including a better US economy \u2013 have been failing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the president wastes his time attacking my community \u2026 the promises of economic prosperity he made in his run for president [in 2024] have not come to fruition,\u201d Omar wrote in the Times. \u201cThe president knows he is failing, and so he is reverting to what he knows best: trying to divert attention by stoking bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attention on Minnesota\u2019s Somali community ramped up in recent weeks as the right wing has seized on fraud cases in the state. Dozens of Somali residents were convicted in a scheme that involved lying to the state to receive reimbursements for meal disbursements, medical care and other services. The investigations into the series of fraud schemes spanned years \u2013 one of the most significant cases had charges filed three years ago.<\/p>\n

One of the cases revolves around an organization called Feeding Our Future, which partnered with state agencies to distribute meals to kids. Federal prosecutors alleged that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the organization submitted fake documents to trick government officials into thinking they served food to thousands of children. The group\u2019s founder was convicted<\/a> in March. US House Republicans have since launched an investigation aimed at how fraud cases were handled by Tim Walz, Minnesota\u2019s Democratic governor who was his party\u2019s vice-presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election won by Trump.<\/p>\n

Omar on Sunday said she was among the first members of Congress who called on the fraud in question to be investigated. She also said the fraud was \u201creprehensible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Omar denied Trump administration<\/a> allegations that taxpayer money involved in fraud investigations in Minnesota was siphoned to a terrorist organization in Somalia.<\/p>\n

The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said<\/a> his department was investigating whether the taxpayer money was going to al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia. House Republicans have also echoed those claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced,\u201d Omar said. \u201cIf there was a linkage in that \u2013 the money that they had stolen going to terrorism \u2013 then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out and basically charging them with these charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent also said those involved in the fraud donated to Omar\u2019s campaign. Omar said Sunday: \u201cWe sent that money back a couple years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US House member Ilhan Omar on Sunday defended the Somali community in her Minnesota congressional district, saying it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-335905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}