The lying, fascist, propagandists in the Trump administration were on the Sunday shows yesterday saying the "president" meant no harm to Rep. Ilhan Omar by making her the face of 9/11. They took her comments about stereotyping Muslims after 9/11 completely out of context intentionally, ran with it in the most hateful and triggering way, and spent their taxpayer-supplied salary putting out a hit on a duly-elected Member of Congress.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib — who, along with Rep. Omar, are the first two non-male Muslim-Americans elected to Congress, and, mind you, in districts not with majority Muslim populations — joined Joy Reid yesterday to discuss a variety of things, but of course, the topic of targeting Rep. Omar came up. Reid asked her if she thought the "president" was putting Rep. Omar's life in danger with his comments.
TLAIB: No question. No question is he inciting violence towards Muslims, not even only Ilhan Omar, but Muslim-Americans in this country. I share this to all my Muslims who are listening to this, Americans, register to vote, vote in 2020. Show them the peaceful revolution that we can create to push back against this kind of hate. I want to see 30, 40, 50 percent increases of Muslim-Americans voting. Majority of them are African-Americans. They share the same skin color as Ilhan Omar. What he did is put more of us in jeopardy. Hate crime has increased under his leadership towards Muslim-Americans, and we need to speak up, and the way we can do it is at the polls in 2020. I'm going to be on the streets knocking doors and making sure we have as many people of color coming out to the polls so that we can send a clear, clear answer to this type of hate in our country. We must have it stop. Too many of our young children are seeing this, too many of them are getting bullied in school, too many people at workplaces are getting discriminated against and it needs to stop. We've seen this over and over again with other people of color and I can tell you, if anything, this country is not divided, we're disconnected. If anything, let this hateful president connect us on the issue around justice and equality and the issue around that we will not allow hate to fester federal government, within the leadership from the white house. We need to speak up and the way we can do it is by outvoting them every single election.
REID: Rashida Tlaib, this is obviously very personal to you and, you know, we certainly hope that you are safe, that Ilhan Omar is safe and that hopefully the leadership is doing enough to protect you both, and you're right because it is about the broader Muslim community that is under attack and you are the face of it, the two of you. It's a much bigger community, a much bigger issue. I really appreciate you being here this morning. Thank you so much.
Right on cue, last evening Rep. Omar issued the following statement.
Yes, direct threats on Rep. Omar's life have increased since Trump's Friday night tweet, and many have referenced being motivated by his tweet. Yet, she has the grace to thank Nancy Pelosi, the Capitol Police, the FBI (continually dissed and dismissed by Trump) and the Sergeant At Arms for taking the threats seriously and protecting her while she does her job unapologetically for her fellow Americans. Rep. Tlaib has the heart and amazing soul to implore her fellow citizens to use Trump's hate as an opportunity to connect around issues of justice and equality. Against all odds, they both still seems proud to be American.
I wish I could say the same.
