Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on Tuesday evening aired a death threat she received as a voicemail while urging House Republican leaders to take action against “anti-Muslim hatred.”
This all comes after days of outrage over Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) refusal to publicly apologize to Omar for insinuating that the Minnesota Democrat is a terrorist.
Omar, who is one of just four Muslim lawmakers to ever serve in Congress, revealed the death threat during a press conference on Tuesday. Omar said she received it hours after she hung up on Boebert in a call the day before after Boebert refused to apologize to Omar directly for her dangerous remarks.
In the voicemail to Omar, a man is heard making several profanity-laden threats that include saying he would “take you off the face of this f*cking Earth” and that “you will not be living much longer, b*tch.” Omar noted that the voicemail is among hundreds of such messages she has received since joining Congress.
After playing the voicemail, Omar said that condemning the recent Islamophobic attacks against her shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
“When a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the ‘jihad squad’ and falsifies a story to suggest I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just an attack on me but on millions of American Muslims across the country,” Omar said. “We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences.”
“It is time for the Republican Party to actually do something to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks and hold those who perpetuate it accountable,” Omar continued.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has declined to take action against Boebert thus far. In a statement last week, McCarthy said that Boebert “apologized for what she said” and that he spoke to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) “so that Congress can get back to talking to each other and working on the challenges facing the American people.”
Omar’s public revelation of the latest death threat she received comes on the heels of Boebert telling a false story about getting into an elevator at the Capitol with a Capitol Police officer and snarking that “the jihad squad decided to show up for work today” when Omar entered. She also claimed she told the officer that they were safe because Omar wasn’t wearing a backpack.
On Monday, Omar hung up on Boebert after the far-right lawmaker repeated her non-apology over the phone. In a statement issued hours after the call, Omar said that she ended the “unproductive” call after Boebert “refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comments” and “instead doubled down on her rhetoric.”
Hours after Omar’s press conference on Tuesday evening, another video surfaced showing Boebert calling Omar a terrorist in a xenophobic and anti-Muslim speech during a Staten Island Conservative Party dinner in September. In a recorded livestream of the event, Boebert is seen calling Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) “black-hearted, evil women who want to destroy our country.” Boebert also repeats the false elevator story about Omar that the Colorado Republican told her supporters about shortly before Thanksgiving.
Although House GOP leadership hasn’t condemned Boebert, her recent attacks against Omar have landed her in the hot water with one of the largest newspapers in her home state of Colorado. On Sunday, the Denver Post editorial board excoriated Boebert in an op-ed, saying that while it has “mostly tried to ignore” Boebert’s antics, the far-right extremist “crossed a line” with her refusal to apologize for her Islamophobic attacks against Omar.
“Rep. Ilhan Omar deserved nothing short of a full apology. Instead, Boebert used the phone call as a publicity stunt and further insulted Omar,” the Denver Post editorial board wrote. “Boebert is clearly incapable of remorse or reflection, so as her fellow Coloradans — a beautiful place of tolerance and respect, diversity and freedom — we will help her.”
