Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said she has no regrets about heckling President Donald Trump during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
She said the incident was “unavoidable” after Trump goaded her and other Democrats into a response. Heading into the night, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries encouraged party members to attend the joint address in silence, or not at all.
Throughout the speech, Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib shouted several times, “Liar!” and “You’re killing Americans,” in reference to the two Minnesota residents fatally shot by federal agents earlier this year.
“The president talked about protecting Americans, and I just had to remind him that his administration was responsible for killing two of my constituents,” Omar said in a Wednesday morning interview with CNN. “I think it was really important for my constituents to see me there. It was really important to my constituents to hear that I was reminding the president that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed under this administration.”
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Omar also took issue with a portion of Trump’s speech in which he derisively referred to her state’s Somali community as “Somali pirates that ransacked Minnesota.”
Trump didn’t acknowledge the lawmaker’s comments during his address, but in a Truth Social post on Wednesday Trump called the women “lunatics.”
“They had the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized,” Trump posted of Tlaib and Omar. “When people can behave like that, and knowing that they are Crooked and Corrupt Politicians, so bad for our Country, we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible.”
On Wednesday, Omar said she also stood behind Democratic Rep. Al Green, who was escorted out of the House chamber after refusing to sit down and holding a sign that read “Black People Aren’t Apes.” Green’s sign was in reference to a Truth Social post from Trump earlier this month that featured former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, with their faces superimposed on monkeys.
“It is an important moment in our nation’s history that we have to take a stance like that, we have to remind a sitting president that we, Black people, are not apes,” Omar told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
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