Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota isn’t backing down without a fight after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he was rigorously working to have her removed from her committee post if he is elected Speaker, according to a report released by The Hill.
“From the moment I was elected, the Republican Party has made it their mission to use fear, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism to target me on the House Floor and through millions of dollars of campaign ads,” the Democratic Congresswoman said in a statement.
“Whether it is Marjorie Taylor Greene holding a gun next to my head in campaign ads or Donald Trump threatening to ‘send me back’ to my country (despite the fact that I have been a proud citizen of the United States for more than 20 years), this constant stream of hate has led to hundreds of death threats and credible plots against me and my family,” she continued.
On a Fox News segment Sunday, McCarthy said that he vowed to remove Omar, in addition to Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), from their committees.
Republicans are set to take control of the House in January after this month’s highly-contested midterm elections. Last week, they voted to nominate McCarthy as Speaker, albeit 31 Republicans voted against him.
McCarthy will need 218 votes to assume the role, granted that every House seat has a sworn-in member who votes. In order to ascent to Speaker of the House, he cannot afford to lose GOP votes.
“McCarthy’s effort to repeatedly single me out for scorn and hatred — including threatening to strip me from my committee — does nothing to address the issues our constituents deal with,” Omar continued in the statement. “It does nothing to address inflation, health care or solve the climate crisis.”
“What it does is gin up fear and hate against Somali Americans and anyone who shares my identity, and further divide us along racial and ethnic lines,” she concluded. “It is a continuation of a sustained campaign against Muslim and African voices, people his party have been trying to ban since Donald Trump first ran for office.”
