Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on Wednesday evening called out the double standard of what her colleagues in Congress choose to hold people accountable for and defended herself against recent criticism from a “Fox and Friends” host who questioned her loyalty to America.
“When you have people on Fox News that question whether I am actually American or I put ‘America first,’ I expect my colleagues to also say, ‘That’s not OK’, they should condemn that and call that out,” she said on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show.” “Or when people call me a terrorist or when people say that because I’m a Muslim, I’m an immigrant, I’m a refugee that I can’t have any loyalty to our country. I took an oath to uphold the Constitution. I am as American as everyone else is.”
“Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday questioned whether Omar is an “American first,” after criticizing her recent remarks about 9/11. During a speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Omar was discussing the inception of CAIR, which was founded after the 9/11 terrorist attack to protect Muslims from discrimination.
“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” she said. Omar has been chastised for diminishing the gravity of the terror attack with the “someone did something” portion of her statement.
In a tweet on Wednesday afternoon, Kilmeade clarified that he didn’t “intend to question whether Rep. Omar is an American.”
I didn't intend to question whether Rep. Omar is an American – I am questioning how any American, let alone a United States Congresswoman, could downplay the 9/11 attacks.
— Brian Kilmeade (@kilmeade) April 10, 2019
Watch Omar’s full interview with Colbert below. The Fox News comments start at 4:18.
