President Trump on Tuesday didn’t hide his feelings about Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat and Somali native whose state is embroiled in a massive Medicaid fraud scandal.
Ms. Omar has been a target of Mr. Trump’s ire about Minnesota, along with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, over the $9 billion fraud allegedly committed by members of the state’s large Somali community.
“Ilhan Omar, she comes from Somalia, a backward country. Probably the worst country, they say,” he said Tuesday at a White House press briefing. “It’s the worst country in the world. There’s no organization. They don’t have police. They don’t have military people running around, killing each other and trying to pirate ships.”
He put it bluntly: “I can’t stand her.”
The president said he learned that Ms. Omar is worth $30 million, but “she never had a job.”
“She’s a crooked congressman,” he said.
Some 98 individuals in Minnesota have been charged with fraudulently obtaining federal taxpayer dollars to subsidize fake child care centers. Of those charged, nearly 90 are from Somalia.
“Somalia is not even a country. They don’t have anything that resembles a country. And if it is a country, it’s considered just about the worst in the world,” Mr. Trump said. “They come here, and they become rich, and they don’t even have a job.”
Mr. Trump has slammed Mr. Walz and Ms. Omar over the handling of the fraud scheme. He has said Ms. Omar should be “in jail, or even a worse punishment, sent back to Somalia, considered one of the absolutely worst countries in the World.”
The House Oversight Committee is launching a probe into Ms. Omar’s net worth, according to reports.
“There are a lot of questions as to how her husband accumulated so much wealth over the past two years,” Oversight Chair James Comer, Kentucky Republican, told the New York Post. “It’s not possible. It’s not. I’m a money guy. It’s not possible.”
