President Donald Trump blasted Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar when questioned about the attack she suffered during a town hall event in Minneapolis on Tuesday night.
Omar was criticizing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in her district when a man in the audience rushed towards her while yelling and spraying an unidentified strong-smelling liquid in a syringe.
The man, who has since been identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, was arrested and has since been charged with third-degree assault.
Asked by ABC’s Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott whether he had seen the footage, which shows Omar being sprayed with the mystery liquid by her assailant, Trump suggested that the incident was a plot concocted by Omar herself.
“No. I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”
After Scott asked a second time whether he had actually seen the footage, the president replied, “I haven’t seen it. No, no. I hope I don’t have to bother.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Rep. Omar’s office for comment.
When asked if she was okay by CNN’s Sara Sidner, who was in attendance at the town hall event, Omar said, “You know, I‘m going to go figure if I am, but I feel okay. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are in elected office or not, not to allow these people to intimidate us, to make us not fight for our constituents and for the country we love.”
She also assured her constituents that she was okay in a social media post, writing on X, “I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.”
Omar has been a frequent target of the president’s attacks, particularly as the Department of Homeland Security continues to target her district for increased ICE operations that have resulted in the deaths of two people at the hands of federal immigration officers.
Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mom-of-three, was killed in Minneapolis by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7. Just over two weeks later, 37-year-old ICE nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Customs and Border Patrol agent.
Trump has regularly mocked and insulted Omar in his public statements and social media posts, and had insulted her hours prior to the attack during his speech in Iowa on Tuesday afternoon.
“She comes from a country that’s a disaster,” Trump said; Omar was born in Somalia and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. “It’s probably… it’s not even a country,” he continued. “It barely has a government. They’re good at one thing: pirates.”
“But they don’t do that anymore because they get the same treatment from us as the drug dealers get,” he added, referring to his administration’s unauthorized strikes on boats suspected of transporting drugs, before imitating the sound of an aerial strike, “Boom! Boom! Boom!”
After being attacked, Omar resumed her speech, telling constituents present, “We will continue! These f—ing a——s are not gonna get away with this!”
“Here is the reality people like this ugly man don’t understand — we are Minnesota Strong. We’ll stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us.”
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