Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty; Tim Evans/Bloomberg via Getty
“I see a Capitol police officer running to the elevator. I see fret all over his face, and he’s reaching, and the door’s shutting, like I can’t open it, like what’s happening,” Boebert, 34, said in the video which was reportedly recorded during an event in her Colorado district. “I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar. And I said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’ "
“So we only had one floor to go and I say, do I say it or do I not?” Boebert told a laughing crowd. “And I look over and I say, ‘Look, the jihad squad decided to show up for work today.’ Don’t worry, it’s just her staffers on Twitter that talk for her. She’s not tough in person.”
A progressive Democrat who is part of “The Squad” of six left-wing House members, 39-year-old Omar responded to the viral video last Thursday, saying the incident never took place.
Lauren Boebert.Joe Raedle/Getty
“Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up,“Omar tweeted. “Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout. Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”
On her own social media accounts, Boebert acknowledged she had connected with Omar on the phone, but the conversation unraveled when she told the Democrat she would not be publicly apologizing.
“She kept asking for a public apology,” Boebert said in a video shared after the phone call Monday. “So I told Ilhan Omar that she should make a public apology to the American people for her anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-police rhetoric … and then, Rep. Omar hung up on me.”
The Democrats also criticized Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for a “failure to condemn inflammatory and bigoted rhetoric from members of their conference,” asking their counterparts to “address this priority with the Congresswoman and to finally take real action to confront racism.”
“I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction,” she wrote.
In a follow-up tweet on Friday, Omar wrote, “Saying I am a suicide bomber is no laughing matter.@GOPLeaderand@SpeakerPelosineed to take appropriate action, normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims. Anti-Muslim bigotry has no place in Congress.”
Lauren Boebert.JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty
“It has to be called out. It has to be dealt with, particularly whenever it is breaching the civility, whenever it is crossing the line in terms of violence or increasing the divide in our country,“Hutchinson said. “One of the things that’s really important to us in the future is increasing the civil debate and civil discourse. And we have got to look for ways that we can bring people together and not divide and certainly along racial lines.”
“She has apologized for what she said and has reached out to Congresswoman Omar to meet next week,” McCarthy said in a statement. “I spoke with Leader Hoyer today to help facilitate that meeting so that Congress can get back to talking to each other and working on the challenges facing the American people.”
In her statement about the phone call that ended badly, Omar said she believes in “engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate.”
She also called out Republican leaders in Congress for not going further in addressing Boebert’s behavior.
“To date, the Republican Party leadership has done nothing to condemn and hold their own members accountable for repeated instances of anti-Muslim hate and harassment,” she said. “This is not about one hateful statement or one politician; it is about a party that has mainstreamed bigotry and hatred. It is time for Republican Leader McCarthy to actually hold his party accountable.
source: people.com
