After winning re-election on Tuesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., told supporters early Wednesday that Democrats’ overwhelming victories across the country sent a message to “the bigot in the White House and his friends that we are not going to be a pawn in their game.”
Omar referring to President Donald Trump as a “bigot” comes after his repeated attacks on the congresswoman whom he has called “garbage,” a “disaster” and a “disgrace to our country.” He has also said Omar, who became a U.S. citizen in 2000, should “go back” to Somalia.
Omar won her race this cycle with more than 76% of the vote, continuing her string of landslide general election victories in one of the bluest congressional districts in the country.
The two federal criminal investigations she faces — both of which became public just over three weeks before Election Day — did not appear to dissuade voters in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District from supporting her.
ILHAN OMAR BELIEVES TRUMP RAID ON HOME WAS MEANT TO ‘INTIMIDATE AND SCARE PEOPLE’ FROM VOTING
In her speech, Omar appeared to reference Operation Metro Surge, which deployed thousands of federal immigration officers primarily to Minneapolis and St. Paul to carry out removal operations. The operation drew fierce local opposition and large-scale protests, during which two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed.
“When this administration came for Minnesotans, we knew that we could respond by showing up in the streets and protecting our neighbors, but we also knew when Election Day came that we were going to provide an answer by directly rejecting them in the ballot box,” Omar said.
Omar also addressed the federal probes examining whether she fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship and whether there were discrepancies in her financial disclosures, framing them as an attempt by the White House to intimidate her and her supporters.
“When they decided that they were going to come for me, they thought that they were going to find someone who was going to cower,” Omar said. “They thought they were going to find a community that was going to live in fear. They thought that if you attacked me and you silenced me, that my community wouldn’t show up and vote.”
Omar shouted out Democratic victories in the Ohio, Maine and Texas Senate races, arguing it proved there had been a backlash against the Trump administration’s policies over the last two years.
She concluded her remarks by echoing Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., who said after the Democratic wave that the Trump family should “lawyer up.” Come January, Garcia is set to become chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which has subpoena power to compel testimony and obtain documents.
“He said, ‘You better lawyer up.’ Because your time of harassment is over. It is our time for accountability and transparency. And if you thought that the Democrats took it easy on you in 2019, wait until you meet these kind of new Democrats,” Omar said.