Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who registered a high-profile first term in Congress, "doesn't belong" in the party, fellow Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., told an employee with the National Republican Congressional Committee on Capitol Hill last Thursday.
"I don't defend her; she doesn't belong in our party," Peterson told a man who asked him whether he had a comment as to why he defended Omar's controversial "some people did something" remarks about 9/11.
When asked to clarify himself, Peterson repeated, "She doesn't belong in our party."
Peterson, a 16-term lawmaker, in a TV interview last April seemed to defend statements Omar made in 2019 about 9/11.
"I think she was inartful in the way she said that," he said. "It's caused a lot of controversy. But I don't know that she meant what some people have taken out of that. I think she was trying to say that some people in her community feel like they are being targeted. That's what she was trying to say, I think. But she has to deal with it."
Omar at the time defended the meaning of "some people did something."
"So 9/11 was an attack on all Americans," she told Margaret Brennan of CBS's "Face the Nation."
"It was an attack on all of us. And I could certainly not understand the weight of the pain that the victims of the families of 9/11 must feel, but I think it is really important for us that we are not forgetting the aftermath of what happened after 9/11."
"Many Americans found themselves, now, having their civil rights stripped from them," Omar continued.
"So what I was speaking to was, as a Muslim, not only was I suffering as an American who was attacked on that day, but the next day I woke up as my fellow Americans were now treating me as suspect," she added.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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