Politics

Omar Says People ‘Go After’ Her More Than The Hosts Of ‘Fox & Friends’

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David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar said people don’t “go after” the journalists who appear on “Fox & Friends” the same way they go after her because “everyone else’s truth is allowed” except her own truth.

She appeared with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” Wednesday night to discuss what she described as inflammatory rhetoric that puts her personal safety at risk, given a recent threat made on her life.

“You will have people come after minorities for things that they say for things that they might have insinuating,” Omar told Colbert, “but no one goes after people like the folks on ‘Fox & Friends’ that actually say those words. It’s not about insinuation. They actually said that I might not be an American; my loyalties might not be to this country. But I get called out, and they get to keep their show.”

“That goes as far as me, too,” Colbert responded, adding:

You said that you believe Stephen Miller is a white nationalist, and you got a lot of heat for that. Haven’t I said that? Don’t we make jokes about that all the time on the show? But it’s unfair because you get attacked, a) because of some of the history you already have of in terms of being a cajole in the area of anti-Semitism accusations,  regardless of your apology, but also because you’re a Muslim, you’re a woman, because you’re a person of color — you’re given less latitude than somebody like me.

Omar’s comments come after she received backlash from a recently surfaced video dating back to her appearance at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conference in Los Angeles last month. She seemed to dismiss America’s worst instance of terrorism as not particularly noteworthy, telling the audience that the attacks were just an occasion when “some people did something.”

“The Late Show” interview did not discuss Omar’s dismissive remarks about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The freshman congresswoman did suggest during the show, however, that she has never accused Americans of “having dual loyalties,” though she has accused Jewish Americans of holding a divided allegiance to Israel and the United States — comments that many perceived as anti-Semitic.

Omar was the keynote speaker at the late March event and she told an enthusiastic audience that Muslims in America ought to “raise hell” and “make people uncomfortable.”

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