President Donald Trump fooled no one with his whole demand for Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar to resign, while, you know, being an outright bigot about Jews and Mexicans and immigrants and women. Least of all threatened, apparently, was Omar herself.
During a Tuesday cabinet meeting, Trump rambled off a call for Omar’s resignation after her Sunday night tweet about AIPAC was characterized by Republicans and some fellow Democrats as anti-Semitic. “What she said is so deep-seated in her heart, that her lame apology, and that’s what it was, it was lame, and she didn’t mean a word of it, was just not appropriate,” Trump said. “I think she should resign from Congress, frankly, but at a minimum she shouldn’t be on [House] committees.”
In response, Omar slammed Trump in a Wednesday morning tweet for having “trafficked in hate your whole life—against Jews, Muslims, Indigenous, immigrants, black people, and more.”
“I learned from people impacted by my words,” Omar said. “When will you?”
All of this is deeply cynical. Anyone who’s paid attention over the last few years can come up with a list of just a few of the many bigoted things Trump has said and done. Trump, for example, told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015, while running for president: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.” (Not to mention saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Unite to Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, during which a white supremacist murdered anti-racist protester Heather Heyer.)
Omar, who lived in a Somali refugee camp as a child and then became one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, has apologized for her comment, something you’ve never been able to say for Trump. But if history is any indication, this won’t be the last time Trump lashes out at or tries to piggyback on grievances against the women tasked with holding him accountable.