Minnesota freshman Congressmember Ilhan Omar says death threats against her have spiked in number since President Trump tweeted a video juxtaposing her image with footage of the 9/11 attacks. Trump posted the video Friday with the caption, “WE WILL NEVER FORGET.” Trump’s tweet intercut video of the World Trade Center towers burning with video of Omar speaking about the increasing attacks on the Muslim American community after 9/11. Congressmember Omar’s comments were originally taken out of context and circulated by right-wing media, from The Daily Caller to Fox News. Congressmember Omar said in a statement, “This is endangering lives. It has to stop.” We speak with Moustafa Bayoumi, the author of This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. His Guardian article is headlined “Ilhan Omar has become the target of a dangerous hate campaign.” Bayoumi is an English professor at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York. He is also the author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Minnesota freshman Congressmember Ilhan Omar says death threats against her have spiked in number since President Trump tweeted a video juxtaposing her image with footage of the 9/11 attacks. Trump posted the 43-second video Friday with the caption, “WE WILL NEVER FORGET.” The president’s tweet intercut video of the World Trade Center towers burning with video of Omar speaking about the increasing attacks on the Muslim American community after 9/11. Omar was speaking at a Council on American-Islamic Relations event last month.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen. And frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it. CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people…