Rep. Ilhan Omar refused to answer whether she supports the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda, at a press conference Monday.
“I will not dignify it with an answer because I know that every single Islamophobe, every single person who is hateful, who is driven by an ideology of ‘othering’ as this president is, rejoices in us responding to that and us defending ourselves,” Omar said.
“I do not expect every time there is a white supremacist who attacks or there is a white man who kills in a school or in a movie theater, or in a mosque, or in a synagogue, I don’t expect my white community members to respond on whether they love that person or not. And so I think it is beyond time, it is beyond time to ask Muslims to condemn terrorists. We are no longer going to allow the dignification of such ridiculous — ridiculous statement,” she said.
Earlier on Monday, President Trump recalled Omar’s previous comments about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Omar still refuses to answer the question of who she believes was responsible for the attacks. Multiple requests from The Federalist for a comment from Omar have gone unanswered.
“I mean, I look at the one, I look at Omar, I don’t know her, I never met her. I hear the way she talks about al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has killed many Americans,” Trump said. “When she talked about the World Trade Center being knocked down, some people, you remember the famous ‘some people.’ These are people that, in my opinion, hate our country.”
Trump also tweeted out similar comments on Monday afternoon.
….They are anti-Israel, pro Al-Qaeda, and comment on the 9/11 attack, “some people did something.” Radical Left Democrats want Open Borders, which means drugs, crime, human trafficking, and much more….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2019
In a 2013 interview, Omar complained about people who think there are differences between America and al-Qaeda.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class,” she said. “Every time the professor said ‘al-Qaeda,’ his shoulders went up. He’d say ‘al-Qaeda’ and ‘Hezbollah.’ You don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity. You don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity.”
