Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called House Republicans the ”Ku Klux Klan caucus” after fellow progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., went public Tuesday with a graphic death threat left anonymously on her voicemail.
”People truly don’t understand the scale, intensity, and volume of threats targeting Ilhan Omar,” Ocasio-Cortez posted to Twitter on Wednesday. ”[House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy is so desperate to be speaker that he is working with his Ku Klux Klan caucus to look aside and allow violent targeting of women of color members of Congress. This cannot be ignored.”
The tweet included a link of Omar publicly announcing the profanity-laden threat and playing it at a press conference Tuesday.
A voice is heard calling Omar a Muslim ”jihadist” and a traitor who should be tried in front of a military tribunal.
The voice said there are ”plenty” of people who would like to see Omar ”removed” from the Earth.
Omar said she received the threat after her recent dust-up with Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., over a joke Boebert told in a public forum in her home state that insinuated one of her staffers was acting concerned when he saw Omar, a Muslim, getting into an elevator, according to an article in Forbes.
”She doesn’t have a backpack, she wasn’t dropping it or running, so we’re good,” Boebert reportedly said.
After Omar publicly chided Boebert for the remark, the two were on a call for Boebert to apologize for offending Omar, but the call did not go well, Forbes reported.
”Today, I graciously accepted a call from Rep. Lauren Boebert in the hope of receiving a direct apology for falsely claiming she met me in an elevator, suggesting I was a terrorist, and for a history of anti-Muslim hate,” Omar said in a statement Monday.
”Instead of apologizing for her Islamophobic comments and fabricated lies, Rep. Boebert refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comments. She instead doubled down on her rhetoric, and I decided to end the unproductive call. I believe in engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate.”
The incident has led several Democrats to call for Boebert to be kicked off her committee assignments.
Omar has also come under fire for her rhetoric regarding Israel and the United States.
In a June 7 post on Twitter, Omar lumped the United States and Israel in with the terrorist organization Hamas, and the Taliban in Afghanistan for committing ”unthinkable atrocities.”
”We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity,” she said in the post. ”We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken where people are supposed to go for justice.”
