It started as another one of President Trump’s rambling Cabinet-room tirades — a routine mix of grievances, applause lines, and off-script jabs. But by the time he reached Minnesota and immigration, the tone shifted sharply. His target, once again, was Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“Ilhan Omar is garbage,” he said, repeating the word like a drumbeat. “Her friends are garbage.” Then came the sweeping condemnation of an entire community: Somalis contribute nothing, he claimed. Their homeland “stinks.” They shouldn’t be here.
00:00We could go one way or the other, and we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.
00:07Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage.
00:12These are people that work. These are people that say, let's go, come on, let's make this place great.
00:17These are people that do nothing but complain.
00:20They complain. And from where they came from, they got nothing.
00:25You know, they came from paradise and they said, this isn't paradise.
00:30But when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country.
00:39Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.
00:42It started as another one of President Trump's rambling cabinet room tirades.
01:01A routine mix of grievances, applause lines, and off-script jabs. But by the time he reached Minnesota and immigration, the tone shifted sharply.
01:13His target, once again, was Rep. Ilhan Omar.
01:17Ilhan Omar is garbage, he said, repeating the word like a drumbeat. Her friends are garbage.
01:25Then came the sweeping condemnation of an entire community.
01:29Somalis contribute nothing, he claimed. Their homeland stinks. They shouldn't be here.
01:35We could go one way or the other. And we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.
01:44Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage.
01:49These are people that work. These are people that say, let's go, come on, let's make this place great.
01:54These are people that do nothing but complain.
01:56They complain. They complain. And from where they came from, they got nothing.
02:02You know, they came from paradise, and they said, this isn't paradise.
02:06But when they come from hell, and they complain, and do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country.
02:16Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.
02:19The clip shot across social media within minutes.
02:23But Omar, as usual, didn't blink.
02:26Instead, she pulled the moment into the light and twisted it back at him with a single, pointed sentence, one that went instantly viral.
02:37His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.
02:43In one line, she reframed a presidential insult into a personal failing.
02:49She didn't match his anger. She diagnosed it.
02:52For Omar, this was hardly unfamiliar territory.
02:56She survived a civil war, fled to a refugee camp, crossed continents, learned English, entered American politics, and became one of the most recognizable women in Congress.
03:08Trump's attacks from accusing her of loving al-Qaeda to telling her to go back and calling her scum have become a kind of political background noise.
03:18But this week's comments hit differently. They followed a swirl of unverified online rumors pushed by conservative activists, claiming, without evidence, that stolen money in Minnesota found its way to al-Shabaab.
03:35The theory fizzled instantly, but not before lighting a fuse under Trump's remarks.
03:41Omar didn't waste time playing defense. She turned the moment into commentary, not about herself, but about the man in the White House.
03:50She cast his anger as fixation, his insults as obsession, his rhetoric as something requiring help, not applause.
03:59Her response landed with a mix of humor, sharpness, and exhaustion, recognizable to anyone who's ever dealt with someone who just won't stop.
04:10It was political Aikido, using the attacker's force against him, and in that moment, Omar did something unexpected.
04:20She made the most powerful man in the country look small.
04:25As Trump continues escalating his language against Somali Americans, vowing to send them back, labeling their community fraudulent, and railing against Minnesota,
04:36Omar seems to have chosen her strategy. Don't absorb the blow. Expose it.
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