Rep. Ilhan Omar “kinda felt bad” for the brave men and women honored by President Donald Trump during his State of the Union address Tuesday, and she thinks the president owes the American people an apology.
Omar took to Twitter to share her “initial #sotu thoughts” and it’s clear she had a much different perspective than the vast majority of people watching at home.
Okay. Initial #sotu thoughts. pic.twitter.com/pkv4UQzwZh
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) February 6, 2019
The freshman congresswoman from Minnesota posted a video shortly after Trump’s SOTU wearing her hijab and a leather jacket, speaking quietly with a smug condescending tone as she mocked the president’s remarks as “the most pedestrian speech we have probably ever heard.”
“It didn’t feel like a presidential speech. It also didn’t address any of the critical issues we have. There was no talk of climate change, there was no acknowledgement of the federal employees he just disrupted for 35 days for no reason,” Omar said. “There was no conversation about the shutdown or the things we need to do in the future to avoid a shutdown.
“There was no apology to the American people,” she said, though she did not explain what Trump should apologize for.
The president honored many Americans by name throughout his speech, from children fighting cancer, to border patrol agents fighting to keep citizens safe, to Holocaust survivors, WWII heroes, victims of illegal immigration and others. To each, he offered a heartfelt thank you.
“It was a parade of American heroes that, um, he sort of used to manipulate the American people, and, um, I kind of felt bad for them because they should be celebrated and they shouldn’t be used to gain political points,” Omar alleged with a smirk.
“And, um, and I hope, uh, that, um, that we will not have another shutdown, and hopefully that there will be some parts of his speech that we can remind him to listen to and hold him accountable to,” she said. “Um, especially with the infrastructure funding, um, or, the work that needs to get done in reducing pharmaceutical prices.”
Omar has built her political career on her identity as a Somali Muslim, regularly touting her minority status and using it to deflect criticism about alleged campaign finance violations and radical policy ideas.
The 37-year-old gained her Democrat credentials when she became the first Somali American legislator in the United States in 2016, when she was elected represent Minneapolis in the Minnesota House of Representatives. She introduced 38 bills as a state lawmaker, none of which became law, before running for Minnesota’s 5th congressional seat in 2018.
Omar was elected to replace Congressman Keith Ellison, who did not seek re-election and instead successfully ran for Attorney General of Minnesota. When she was officially sworn into office on her grandfather’s Quran in January, Omar gained the privileged status of the first Somali American elected to Congress. Also, she’s the first naturalized citizen from Africa and one of the first two Muslim women, along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, to serve in the lower chamber.
Omar is among a raft of socialists elected to the House last year that support a slate of radical policies, including “free” college tuition, “Medicare for All,” abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, supporting sanctuary cities, a nationwide $15 minimum wage, and drastic measures to address alleged climate change.
In the president’s Tuesday SOTU, he vowed that “America will never be a socialist country,” and that undoubtedly played into Omar’s sour assessment of the address. But it’s clear the vast majority of Americans who watched came to a different conclusion.
According to a CBS News poll conducted shortly after the president’s remarks, a whopping 76 percent gave it a thumbs up.
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