President Trump was rebuffed Saturday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for invoking the September 11 terrorist attacks in a video targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat.
“The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence. The President shouldn’t use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said on Twitter.
“It is wrong for the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe,” Mrs. Pelosi tweeted.
The congresswoman’s remarks were made in response to a video Mr. Trump posted online a day earlier that combined footage of the Sept. 11 attacks with an an out-of-context quote by Ms. Omar, a former Somali refugee and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.
“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,” Ms. Omar said at an event last month hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.
“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” Ms. Omar said at the event.
In point of fact, according to their Facebook page, CAIR was founded in 1994, seven years before the 9/11 terror attacks.
Mr. Trump shared a video on Twitter that showed footage of the unprecedented terrorist attacks while repeating a partial excerpt from Ms. Omar’s remarks: “some people did something.”
“WE WILL NEVER FORGET,” Mr. Trump captioned the clip.
The video posted on Twitter by the president was retweeted more than 64,000 times as of Saturday morning.
Roughly a week after federal authorities announced the arrest of a New York man accused of threatening to kill Ms. Omar, the president’s tweet was quickly condemned by several Democrats considering White House campaigns.
“The President is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman—and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. It’s disgusting. It’s shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat.
“President Trump’s inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric towards Ilhan Omar is jeopardizing her safety,” added Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state. “He is deliberately putting her and all Muslim Americans in harm’s way.”
Patrick W. Carlineo, Jr., 55, was arrested last Friday and charged with threatening to assault and murder a U.S. official. The Department of Justice alleges he called Ms. Omar’s office, called her a “terrorist” and threatened to “put a bullet in her [expletive] skull.” He has not yet entered a plea, according to court filings.
Nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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