Trump calls Ilhan Omar ‘garbage,’ says Somalis should ‘go back to where they came from’
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “trash” and said Somalis should “go back to where they came from.”
“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you, okay. Someone will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is not good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don’t want them in our country,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“I can say that about other countries too,” he added, as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sat nearby. In a social media post Monday evening, Noem said: “I recommend a total travel ban to all the damn countries that are flooding our nation with killers, leeches and rights junkies. » A source close to the project said today that around 30 countries would appear on this list.
However, Trump has focused most of his anger on Somalia and Omar.
“With Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have nothing, they have nothing. They just kill each other. There’s no structure,” he said before turning to Omar, a progressive Democrat and Somali American who he has been mocked and targeted for years.
“I’m always watching her,” Trump said, saying she “hates everyone. And I think she’s an incompetent person. She’s a really terrible person.”
Omar has served in Congress since 2019.
Trump later called her “trash. Her friends are trash. They’re not people who work. They’re not people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ They’re people who just complain.
“You know, if they come from heaven and say, ‘This isn’t heaven,’ but when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bullshit, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” he added.
A representative for Omar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s remarks come as a top law enforcement official told NBC News that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning an operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul neighborhood this week. The official said ICE agents are not specifically targeting the Somali community, but they may arrest some Somalis who violate immigration laws.
The planned operation was first reported by The New York Times.
The president’s remarks on Somalia came at the end of the public portion of a more than two-hour Cabinet meeting, when a reporter asked him whether Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz should resign over fraud related to Covid relief funds in the state.
The New York Times reported that 59 people have been convicted of criminal charges related to the fraud schemes in recent years, and most are of East African descent. In total, these scams netted taxpayers more than $1 billion.
Trump said: “The Somalis took away this state for billions of dollars, billions, every year, billions of dollars, and they contribute nothing. »
Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that fraudsters go to jail, and “demonizing an entire community over the actions of a few is lazy.”
There are about 80,000 Somalis in Minnesota, and Walz said Trump “demonizes a whole group of people who came here, fleeing the civil war, and created a vibrant community that makes Minnesota and this country better.” But that’s Donald Trump: divert, demonize, find no solution. It’s not going to help fix anything when it comes to fraud.
In his remarks Tuesday, Trump called Walz “a blatantly incompetent man. There’s something wrong with him.”
