Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has been the target of several death threats and harassment by political opponents, most recently, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
Last Tuesday, Nov. 30, Rep. Omar played a harrowing death threat recently left for her by voicemail. She played the voicemail to implore House Republican leaders to do more to tamp down “anti-Muslim hatred” in their ranks and “hold those who perpetuate it accountable.”
As only one of two Muslim members of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar says the increased number of death threats she received feature the aforementioned Rep. Boebert calling Omar a member of the “jihad squad” and likening her to a “bomb-carrying terrorist,” which also went viral.
Despite calls to apprehend Rep. Boebert, Republicans in Congress have yet to publicly condemn Boebert’s remarks. In an interview with CNN Sunday Dec. 5, Omar said that she expects House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take “decisive action” to penalize Boebert.
“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 during a news conference last Tuesday. “We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences.”
Then Omar played the profanity and racial epithet-laden voicemail, which included a direct threat to “take you off the face of the (expletive) earth.” She said this was one message among hundreds of such messages she has reported since joining Congress. Omar also shared that the voicemail was left for her after Boebert released another video last Monday attacking her.
Elsewhere on the recording, an as-yet-identified man can be heard saying, “You will not be living much longer, b***h,” while promising that “we the people are rising up.” He also calls Omar a “traitor” and pledges that she will stand trial before a military tribunal.
Omar concluded her revealing and devastating message with a call-to-action, saying, “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.”
Boebert’s incendiary remarks are just the latest example of a GOP lawmaker making a personal attack against another member of Congress, an unsettling trend that has gone largely unchecked by House Republican leaders.