President Donald Trump delivered a series of sharp attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., during Friday’s rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner, criticizing the congresswoman while also taking aim at Democratic policies he argued are driving people away from states like California.
While discussing what he described as failed policies in California, Trump claimed the state has embraced measures that encourage wildfires, pay drug addicts to remain homeless, provide free sex-change procedures to illegal immigrants, and threaten wealthy Americans with higher taxes.
According to the president, those policies are causing residents to leave the state in large numbers.
“We can’t have that in this country,” Trump told the audience. “It’s becoming such a horrible and dangerous location that Ilhan Omar, one of my favorites, and her brother are thinking about moving together. They’re very much in love.”
Trump’s remarks referenced long-circulating allegations that Omar married her brother in order to help him enter the United States from Somalia. Those claims have not been substantiated. Omar and her family fled Somalia’s civil war when she was eight years old before spending four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. The family arrived in the United States in 1995, when Omar was 12.
The president continued his criticism by referencing what he described as a recently surfaced video in which Omar referred to World War II as “World War 11.”
“A video has surfaced recently of Ilhan giving a speech, referring to World War II as World War 11,” Trump said. “And they asked her about that, and she still thought she got it right.”
Trump then intensified his criticism of the Minnesota Democrat.
“But I’m not surprised, because she’s a low I.Q. person, and she’s also a very dishonest person, and she oughta get the hell out of our country!” the president declared.
Trump went on to argue that Omar should not be in the United States, repeating his earlier remarks about her family while also raising allegations regarding her financial disclosures.
“She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be in our country,” Trump said. “She also calls her brother ‘husband number one.’ Omar is reportedly being investigated for fraud. She revised her net worth. I was shocked to see that she was worth much more than $30 million. And then when the press got on her, she revised it slightly downward to less than $18,000.”
The president did not provide additional details during his remarks regarding the reported investigation or the financial disclosure claims.
Omar has previously responded to criticism from the Trump administration. In May, she told TMZ that she believes she has been singled out because members of the administration are “racists” and “bigoted.”
The exchange marked the latest chapter in the long-running political feud between Trump and Omar, who have frequently clashed over immigration, national security, and other major policy issues. During his appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the president used the occasion to deliver some of his harshest rhetoric yet toward the Democratic lawmaker, closing out his remarks by insisting that she “oughta get the hell out of our country.”
