MINNESOTA —Two weeks after President Donald Trump targeted four congresswomen of color, saying they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul offered to help pay for a plane ticket to send Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar to visit her native Somalia so that “she might come back and appreciate America more.” This week, Omar’s response to Paul — retweeting a comment from comedian Tom Arnold mocking a violent attack on the Republican — is drawing criticism.
In an interview with Breitbart News, Paul made the claim that “I hear Representative Omar say America is a terrible place,” adding that he would help pay for a plane ticket to allow her to visit Somalia. “And then maybe after she’s visited Somalia for a while, she might come back and appreciate America more,” he said.
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On Monday, actor Arnold tweeted, “Imagine being Rand Paul’s next door neighbor and having to deal with @RandPaul lying cowardly circular whiney bullcrap about lawn clippings. No wonder he ripped his toupee off,” referring to a 2017 incident in which Paul was attacked while mowing his lawn. In 2018, Paul’s neighbor pleaded guilty to the incident, and Paul was awarded more than $580,000 in damages in a related lawsuit, saying several of his ribs were broken in the attack.
Omar retweeted the comment, sparking criticism from some, including Donald Trump Jr., who wrote, “Congresswoman Ilhan Omar retweeting calls for political violence against @randpaul. I’m not surprised, and look forward to the forthcoming silence from the media on the issue.”
As of Tuesday morning, Omar had not responded to backlash regarding the retweet.
Days after his comments about Omar and several other Democratic congresswomen, the president attended a rally in North Carolina where his supporters began chanting “send her back” in reference to Omar — who is the only one among the four congresswomen who was not born in the United States.
That same night, the hashtag “#IStandWithIlhan” began trending on Twitter in response to the incident, which drew allegations of racism.
Meanwhile, Trump later disavowed the chant, telling reporters he was “not happy” with the incident. “I was not happy with it. I disagree with it. But again, I didn’t say that. They did. But I disagree with it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He also said he “started speaking very quickly” in an attempt to silence the rally attendees.
Omar’s family fled the Somalian civil war when she was 8 years old, arriving in the United States in the early 1990s after spending four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. The family moved to Minnesota in 1997, according to Omar’s website.