American lawmaker of Somali descent, Ilhan Omar, In the face of attacks from President Donald Trump, Republicans and rightwing media outlets, says no one could “threaten” her “unwavering love for America”.
“I did not run for Congress to be silent,” Omar wrote on Twitter, less than a day after the president shared a video that included footage of her speaking and graphic images of the 9/11 terror attacks. Trump retweeted his message on Saturday.
Omar thanked supporters for standing “against an administration that ran on banning Muslims from this country”.
“No one person – no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious – can threaten my unwavering love for America,” she wrote on Twitter. “I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans.”
Trump tweeted “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!” with a video edited to suggest Omar was dismissive of the attacks. The video used part of a speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in which Omar discussed the problem of Islamophobia, describing “the discomfort of being a second-class citizen”. After September 11, she said, advocates “recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties”.
Rightwing politicians were quick to say Omar was dismissing the gravity of 9/11. Dan Crenshaw, a congressman from Texas who as a Navy Seal was seriously injured in Afghanistan, falsely claimed Omar “does not consider [September 11] a terrorist attack on the USA by terrorists”.
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