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Home / World

Omar fires back at Trump, saying he has 'trafficked in hate' his entire life

By Rachael Bade, John Wagner, Mike DeBonis
Washington Post·
13 Feb, 2019 08:43 PM7 mins to read

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Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D, listens to US President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech last week. Photo / AP
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D, listens to US President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech last week. Photo / AP

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D, listens to US President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech last week. Photo / AP

Representative Ilhan Omar rejected US President Donald Trump's call for her resignation by accusing him of having "trafficked in hate your whole life" while she privately has tried to make amends with Jewish colleagues for comments labelled anti-Semitic.

The Minnesota Democrat, who fired back at Trump in a tweet, has faced a widespread backlash for suggesting that Israel's allies in US politics were motivated by money rather than principle.

During a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Trump said "anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress," called an apology by Omar "lame" and said she should resign from Congress or give up her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"You have trafficked in hate your whole life - against Jews, Muslims, Indigenous, immigrants, black people and more," Omar said in her tweet. "I learned from people impacted by my words. When will you?"

Omar, who has publicly apologised, has met Jewish members to express her regret, according to several Democrats. Prioritising Jewish members of the new class, Omar is lining up several face-to-face meetings with lawmakers whom she alienated as she seeks to move past her comments.

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Her outreach effort includes Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D. She also has spoken to Bend the Arc and J Street, liberal Jewish groups, as well as national Jewish leaders. In her district, she has been in touch with local Jewish groups and is organising a roundtable with Jewish constituents to hear their concerns next week.

Omar's apology tour comes as Democratic leaders have floated what amounts to an ultimatum to their GOP colleagues eager to rebuke the new Muslim lawmaker.

While Republicans said this week that they may force a vote in the full House against Omar - such as a privileged resolution disapproving of her actions - senior House Democrats have suggested that they might retaliate, putting Republicans in the equally awkward position of having to reprimand one of their own, including their top leader.

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Under what would amount to a scenario of mutually assured destruction, House Democrats would force Republicans to vote on censure of Representative Steve King, R, for his comments, including questioning whether the term white nationalist was offensive.

Mr. Vice President- Congresswoman @IlhanMN apologized. She has moved on to highlighting challenges facing McDonald’s workers.
President Trump, a far more powerful person in Washington, has never apologized for his embrace of white nationalism & anti-Semitic & Islamophobic hate. https://t.co/JolA1Yn7Iv

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 13, 2019

While both parties adopted a resolution disapproving racist comments in January, Democrats had held off on the more extreme censure vote, in part out of concerns that their Republican colleagues would turn the tables.

Democrats have also privately discussed the idea of a repudiating House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R, for an election-time tweet in which he suggested a band of wealthy Jewish donors were trying to "buy" the Midterm elections. McCarthy deleted the tweet.

"What we have seen from Republicans in the House is that truth does not matter and hypocrisy is not a constraint to behaviour," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, of New York. "They should proceed with caution in this particular area given their history."

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A senior House Democratic aide was more blunt: "If they want to vote on Steve King every week, they can do that. . . . And McCarthy."

For now, Republicans appear to be holding off. While McCarthy just days ago predicted House floor action this week - and aides considered forcing a vote on a resolution denouncing Omar and anti-Semitism, written by Representative Lee Zeldin, R, - he said today that he had no immediate plans to force the issue.

That hasn't stopped Republicans from criticising Omar for her comments - and complaining that Democratic leaders are not doing enough to punish her.

Rep. McCarthy, still railing today against Rep. Omar, says his now-deleted tweet warning that three Jewish billionaires were trying to “buy” the election had “nothing to do with faith” https://t.co/KnQNUIifYO

— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) February 13, 2019

Vice-President Mike Pence said in an MSNBC interview with Andrea Mitchell that Republicans removed King from his committees after his comments and backed a resolution rejecting white supremacy and white nationalism.

"Unless Representative Omar resigns from Congress, at a minimum Democrat leaders should remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee," said Pence.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R, sounded a similar tone.

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"We have been speaking out against the growing anti-Semitism that we're seeing from some of the Democrats in Congress," said Scalise. "We've been disappointed that their leadership hasn't been strong enough in calling that language out."

House Democratic leaders issued a joint statement on Tuesday, denouncing Omar's use of "anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel's supporters."

They have argued that Omar's apology suffices for now while suggesting that if she makes another incendiary comment, she will face a harsher punishment.

Special Envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams and Rep. Ilhan Omar clash in testy exchange at House Foreign Affairs hearing.

"Whether...a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question," she says. pic.twitter.com/zyKLzOjfsA

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 13, 2019

Speaking to reporters today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D, left open the possibility of disciplinary action.

"Apologies are appropriate," Hoyer said. "But the real test is the actions going forward. . . . We need to treat one another with respect and without language that would refer to any kind of interpretation of bigotry or prejudice or hate."

"Very frankly, if that doesn't pan out, there may be further actions we'll need to take," he added.

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In a pair of Monday tweets, Omar had cited Puff Daddy's 1997 paean to money - "It's All About the Benjamins" - to paint Israel's supporters in Congress as beholden to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful lobbying group whose members contribute generously to lawmakers who share its perspective on the Middle East.

In the wake of the controversy, Trump himself has come under scrutiny for comments he made to the Republican Jewish Coalition as a presidential candidate in 2015.

"You're not going to support me, because I don't want your money. . . . But that's OK. You want to control your own politician," Trump told the group at the time.

House Democrats who had signed a letter criticising Omar's tweets said they were largely satisfied with her public apology and private outreach, even as Trump and Pence pushed for additional consequences.

"We just see this as opening a door for us to continue a dialogue in a constructive way on the issues that we're concerned about," said Representative Elaine Luria, D.

Congressman Dean Phillips, a Jewish Democrat who represents a district adjoining Omar's, met her on Tuesday and encouraged her to contact more colleagues who had been offended by her remarks.

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"I don't want to see anybody ostracised unless they are frankly deserving of it, and I think she deserves another chance, and I encourage that, but it also takes a commitment, and that's what I asked for."

"It is in nobody's interest that she or anybody else in our caucus become a pariah, and so we've got to avoid that at all costs," said another Jewish House Democrat who spoke to Omar this week.

"This whole controversy has opened up a different kind of dialogue between Muslims, Christians, and Jewish brothers and sisters. So good things have come as a result." - @RepAndreCarson on Rep. Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitic tweets.https://t.co/2rrMKpn9bx pic.twitter.com/CSU4stQZKn

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) February 13, 2019
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