Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has said US President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks and insults are posing a threat to her life, after Trump went on the offensive this weekend saying the lawmaker “truly hates our country”.
“Every time the president has invoked my name, it has incited violence against me,” Congresswoman Omar told MSNBC.
“This president is creating an environment where he is threatening to lock up his political opponents, where people no longer understand that in a democracy we are supposed to debate policy differences but we are not supposed to harm one another,” she said.
“And when you have a leader, the president of the United States, not understand that, then there is danger not only to our way of life but to our democracy and the ways it’s supposed to function.”
Donald Trump’s repeated unhinged, conspiratorial attacks on me and other prominent female politicians are not just sexist. They are leading to frequent threats against our lives.
It has to stop. pic.twitter.com/zINd9oCdKY
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 19, 2020
Fellow Minnesota Congresswoman Betty McCollum came to the defence of Omar on Tuesday, blasting Trump over his remarks.
“The president’s vicious & disgusting attacks on my colleague @Ilhan & other women elected officials are unacceptable,” McCollum tweeted.
“@Ilhan and I look forward to continuing to work together for Minnesotans in Congress when Pres. Trump is long gone from the White House.
In recent months, Trump has launched a number of attacks against Omar, attempting to cast the American legislator as a foreigner. Last month, Trump said Omar was telling Americans how to run “our country”.
In June, he told his supporters that the congresswoman is a “hate-filled, America-bashing socialist”.
“She would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came – Somalia. No government, no safety, no police, no nothing, just anarchy.”❐
