In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said President Donald Trump uses “very bigoted, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist rhetoric when he is trying to scapegoat and deflect from the actual failures that he has himself.” Earlier in the day, Trump said Omar “shouldn’t be allowed to be a Congresswoman” and “should be thrown the hell out of our country.” “To me, it is important for us, one, to remind folks that we are Americans, we’re not going anywhere, and we will continue to be in this country, and two, that Minnesotans are resilient and we will continue to thrive,” Omar said of the Somali-American community.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: …A separate immigration operation is underway in Minnesota, that one targeting Somali immigrants who have been the subject of public scrutiny after a New York Times report detailing how fraud took root in pockets of the community with some quote making small fortunes by defrauding government programs of more than one billion dollars of taxpayer money during the pandemic. We’re talking about dozens of people in a community of thousands of course. Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is here with me now. First of all, federal prosecutors say 59 people have been investigated in these schemes so far. Americans at large stole tens of billions of forms of aid during the pandemic all over the country. Minnesota’s fraud scandal stands out according to federal auditors. What are you hearing from investigators right now? REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): Well, I’ve been following the cases closely as they’ve gone through the courts and we know that there are more indictments possibly coming. I think that number might go up to 73 is what I’m hearing. TAPPER: Can you shed any light on why the fraud got so out of control in Minnesota? OMAR: I think what happened is that when you have these kind of new programs that are designed to help people, you’re oftentimes relying on third parties to be able to facilitate. And I just think that a lot of the COVID programs that were set up, they were set up so quickly that a lot of the guardrails did not get created. TAPPER: Obviously, whatever the ethnic group, the actions of a few dozen should not impugn an entire community of thousands of people. I want to make that very clear. President Trump has used this fraud to make rather, to me, shockingly bigoted comments about Somalis in general, including you, but the entire Somali community in Minnesota. He did it yesterday and he did it again today. Let’s run some of that. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: These Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. They’ve taken billions and billions of dollars. They have a representative, Ilhan Omar, who they say married her brother. She should be thrown the hell out of our country. And most of those people, they have destroyed Minnesota… She should not be, and her friends shouldn’t be allowed, frankly, they shouldn’t even be allowed to be Congresspeople. They shouldn’t even be allowed to be Congresspeople because they don’t represent the interests of our country. TAPPER: It’s pretty shocking to hear it, although I don’t know how shocked you are at this point anymore, but Somali immigrants in general, you in particular, have been the target of his attacks for a long time. What’s your response? OMAR: Yeah, I mean, I’m not shocked because we know that the president oftentimes resorts to very bigoted, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist rhetoric when he is trying to scapegoat and deflect from the actual failures that he has himself. We know that this administration has not fulfilled majority of the promises that they’ve made, whether it is bringing costs down, whether it is the tariffs that are decimating businesses in the United States, whether it is the possible war crimes that his defense secretary is committing. And so, to me, it is important for us, one, to remind folks that we are Americans, we’re not going anywhere, and we will continue to be in this country, and two, that Minnesotans are resilient and we will continue to thrive. TAPPER: What is the practical impact when a president of the United States demonizes an entire group of people based on ethnicity? And again, you can point to any ethnic group and find dozens of people in that ethnic group who are committing a particular crime. The mafia comes to mind, but you don’t hear people saying that about Italians. They did 100 years ago, but they don’t do it today. What is the practical effect on the Somali community when the president says things like that? OMAR: I mean, it creates fear and there is a possible danger that a lot of the people who follow the president have exhibited violence in many cases, especially in my case, whenever he has said something about me that is derogatory or says I’m a threat to the country, I’ve gotten death threats. There are so many people that have been incarcerated over the years that have been encouraged by the president’s words. And so there is fear for Somalis, not just in Minnesota, but across the country, that some of these people might attack and harm them. TAPPER: Ahead of the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, CNN asked the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin about the remarks from the president. Here’s what she had to say. TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: This is not about politics. This is about public safety. We saw what just happened last week with the terrorist attack against us here in our nation’s capital, where one of our great heroes, Sarah Beckstrom, was killed. That’s what the precipice of this was. TAPPER: What’s your response to that? omar: Well, certainly not. We know that Somalis, over 90 percent of them, are citizens of this country, majority of them having born in the United States. And we know that if you are a criminal, you already have deportation orders. And there is an easy way for them to do that instead of creating this sort of fear where they are having raids. And today we saw them stopping citizens and people were proving their citizenship by showing their passports. And so we know it has really nothing to do about keeping a community safe. It’s actually terrorizing a community and creating fear.

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