By: J. Patrick Coolican
Minnesota Reformer
During a town hall in Minneapolis Tuesday, a man rushed at U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and squirted an unknown substance at her using a syringe before he was apprehended by her security and Minneapolis police.
Video of the event shows Omar, a Minneapolis Democrat, cock her fist to launch a haymaker as the man’s tackled by officers.
After the incident, she went on talking to constituents.
In a statement, her office said, “The congresswoman is OK. She continued with her town hall because she doesn’t let bullies win.”
After the town hall, Omar wrote on X, “I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work…. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.”
Omar has been the subject of relentless Republican vitriol since her 2018 election, including by President Donald Trump in recent weeks. He’s called her “garbage” and said she should be jailed or sent to her native Somalia. While announcing on Monday that he’d be changing personnel to carry out his federal immigration crackdown here — widely viewed as an acknowledgment of error following the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers — Trump also threw in a shot at Omar and her family’s newfound wealth.
Omar responded in kind: “Sorry, Trump, your support is collapsing and you’re panicking,” she wrote on X. “Right on cue, you’re deflecting from your failures with lies and conspiracy theories about me. Years of ‘investigations’ have found nothing. Get your goons out of Minnesota.”