Rand Paul: ‘Unappreciative’ Ilhan Omar shouldn’t act shocked at rebukes

Sen. Rand Paul said random rebukes of Rep. Ilhan Omar are no surprise given the Minnesota congresswoman’s rhetorical past on American culture.

The Kentucky Republican weighed on the controversy surrounding President Trump’s tweets about disgruntled Democrats by asking why Ms. Omar — a Somalian refugee — “badmouths our country” in the first place. 

“So interesting to see ’Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Mr. Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how.”

Critics have claimed Mr. Trump’s tweets are racist, although Mr. Paul said it is logical for people to question Ms. Omar’s rhetoric on various issues.

“I’m sort of dumbfounded how unappreciative she is of our country,” the senator told a local NBC affiliate Monday. “She says this is terrible, a place without justice and all this. She’s a congresswoman. She got here as a refugee 20 years ago. She’s elected to congress. I can’t imagine a better country that elected her to congress and she badmouths our country.”

Ms. Omar recently came under fire for saying U.S. support for Israel could be boiled down to two words: “the Benjamins.”

She also said in 2012 that citizens would see “the evil doings of Israel.”

“Israel has hypnotized the world,” she once tweeted. “May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Mr. Paul went on to lament the lawmaker’s “bitterness and anger toward the country.”

“I think she does deserve a rebuke over trying to say we have a rotten country,” he told the station.