Controversial Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota made her first Sunday news show appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation,addressing comments made last week by the son of a 9/11 victim, who accused her of not understanding the outrage caused by her previously dismissive comments on the attack.
Show moderator Margaret Brennan brought up the New York 9/11 memorial service, where a speaker wore a t-shirt inscribed with Omar’s prior controversial remark on 9/11: “Some people did something.”
“Do you understand why people found that offensive?” Brennan asked.
Omar didn’t respond directly, instead bringing up the purported backlash against Muslims after the 9/11 attack.
“So, 9/11 was an attack on all Americans. It was an attack on all of us. And I could certainly not understand the weight of the pain that the victims of the families of 9/11 must feel. But I think it is really important for us that we are not forgetting the aftermath of what happened after 9/11,” Omar said.
“Many Americans found themselves now having their civil rights stripped from them,” Omar said. “So what I was speaking to was, as a Muslim, not only was I suffering as an American who was attacked on that day, but the next day I woke up as my fellow Americans were now treating me as suspect.”
As for her Congressional performance so far and the various firestorms created by her outspokeness, Omar said that it’s a new day in Washington.
“I think it’s really important for us to recognize that it’s a new Congress, it’s a diverse Congress, and we’re not only diverse in our race, in our ethnicity, in our religion, but we are also diverse in our perspective, in our pain, in our struggles, and the hopes and dreams that we have and the kind of America that we want to shape for all of us,” Omar said.
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