Rep. Ilhan Omar wanted a public apology from the far-right congresswoman who last week joked that she was a terrorist. Unsurprisingly, she did not get it.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado freshman who’s allied herself with hard-line conservatives in Congress, was filmed last week talking to constituents about an interaction with Omar at the Capitol where she joked that one of the first Muslim women ever elected to Congress was a terrorist. The comments came just days after Boebert called Omar a “member of the Jihad squad” on the House floor and claimed that Omar’s ex-husband was actually her brother, a conspiracy theory Omar has repeatedly rejected.
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Boebert tweeted a public apology last week “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended” and said she’d reached out to Omar’s office, while calling the video an “unnecessary distraction.” But Omar said Monday that the call was “unproductive” and ended with the Minnesota congresswoman hanging up on Boebert.
“Today, I graciously accepted a call from Rep. Lauren Boebert in the hope of receiving a direct apology for falsely claiming she met me in an elevator, suggesting I was a terrorist, and for a history of anti-Muslim hate,” Omar said in a Monday statement.
“Instead of apologizing for her Islamophobic comments and fabricated lies, Rep. Boebert refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comments. She instead doubled down on her rhetoric and I decided to end the unproductive call.”
“I believe in engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate,” Omar added.
Boebert’s version of the call is largely in line with Omar’s. “I wanted to let her know directly that I reflected on my previous remarks,” Boebert said in a Twitter video posted Monday, going on to say that “as a strong Christian woman who values faith deeply, I never want anything I say to offend someone’s religion.”
But when Omar wanted Boebert to make a public apology, Boebert complained and insisted that it was actually Omar who should apologize “to the American people for her anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-police rhetoric.”
“She continued to press, and I continued to press back. And then Rep. Omar hung up on me,” Boebert said. She went on to say that Omar rejecting her apology “was part of cancel culture 101” and again implied Omar “sympathize[s] with terrorists.”
Boebert’s comments have been roundly denounced by Democrats and even a minority of prominent Republicans. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CNN over the weekend that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy should publicly condemn Boebert’s comments, and Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, told the same network that day that Boebert’s comments are “disgusting” and an example of “racist tropes.”
But other Republicans have backed Boebert. Former Iowa Rep. Steve King tweeted last week that when Omar first got to Congress, a fellow member implied that she was hiding explosives in her niqab.
On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump—who once started a chant of “Send her back” about Omar and other members of the progressive Squad—released a Tuesday statement containing lies and unproven allegations about Omar.
“Congresswoman Ilhan Omar should apologize for marrying her brother, committing large-scale immigration and election fraud, wishing death to Israel, and for essentially abandoning her former country, which doesn’t even have a government—Exactly what she’d like to see for the United States!” Trump said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Boebert’s top allies in Congress, tweeted at Mace Tuesday that she’s “not conservative, she’s pro-abort” and called Mace “the trash in the GOP conference.”
In a speech in 2019 when she was a state lawmaker in South Carolina and the state was debating a bill restricting access to abortion, Mace argued to include an exemption for rape and incest after disclosing that she’d been raped in high school.
“This was a devastating and life-changing traumatic event. I had no hope for the future, turned to drugs and alcohol, dropped out of school, and never thought I’d make it,” Mace said in a Tuesday tweet referring to Greene. “Beyond disgusted.”
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