President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “could go to jail” as his administration investigates the Minnesota Democrat. He followed with a blistering attack on the congresswoman and her native Somalia from the Oval Office.
A reporter asked the president whether Omar could be deported if there turned out to be a problem with her age.
“She could be. She could also go to jail,” Trump said. “They keep talking about deportation. No, she could go to jail.”
The president said he was offering his personal opinion and then went after the congresswoman directly.
“I think she’s a sick, very dishonest person who hates our country, and she comes from a country that essentially is not even a country,” Trump said. “Somalia. It’s a real sh*thouse, okay? It’s got no government. It’s got no police protection.”
“All they do is have people running around shooting each other,” he continued. “Then she comes over here, and she says — and she wants to tell us how to run America. She wants to tell us how to run the United States of America.”
Trump also mocked Omar for invoking her constitutional rights.
“And she’ll say, ‘Oh, I have constitutional rights.’ And she never heard the word. She never saw that before,” the president said. “But she says she has rights.”
“She’s a disgrace to our country, and it’s amazing that she can get elected, but Somalians vote for her,” Trump added. “Most of ’em shouldn’t be here.”
The president claimed Somalis have “like, a 98% unemployment rate.”
“They don’t work. 98%. It’s a disgrace,” he said. “It’s a disgrace, and they’ve ruined a great state.”
Trump then recalled Minnesota “in the old days,” praising the state’s lakes.
“They had more lakes than any place I’ve ever seen. So beautiful,” he said. “They’re destroying it. Probably, maybe they’ve destroyed it.”
The president said he hopes “a Republican woman who happens to be very respected by everybody” wins, and predicted voters “will see a difference.” He ended by saying he hopes Omar is treated fairly, while repeating his belief that she is “a very dishonest person.”
Trump’s comments come as federal investigators look into whether Omar or her late father misrepresented her age on immigration paperwork when the family came to the U.S. from Somalia in the 1990s.
Last week, federal agents raided the congresswoman’s home in Washington, D.C., seizing her passport, cellphone and computers. Investigators are working to build a case that would strip Omar of her U.S. citizenship.
The investigation has raised the possibility of serious consequences for the Minnesota lawmaker. Reporters have asked whether deportation is on the table, and the president suggested Tuesday that jail time could be possible as well.
Omar has denied any wrongdoing. She has accused the Trump administration of “political intimidation.”
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