Trump's Special 'Thanks' to Ilhan Omar During Jewish Coalition Speech Has Crowd Roaring
President Trump gave a bit of “thanks” to Rep. Ilhan Omar during a speech to a Jewish group and now the left is up in arms — if not for the content of the president’s sarcastic remarks.
According to TheBlaze, Trump was speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday in Las Vegas, in a speech that was interrupted by protesters condemning the “occupation” of Israel.
He began his speech by thanking the various participants — including one snide remark about a certain Minnesota Democrat who isn’t terribly fond of the Jewish state.
“And a special thanks to Representative Omar, of Minnesota,” Trump said to boos.
“Oh. Oh, I forgot. She doesn’t like Israel, I forgot,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Oh. No, she doesn’t like Israel, does she? Please, I apologize.”
Pretty funny stuff, and the audience was roaring.
However, you’re apparently not supposed to criticize the fact that Rep. Omar has repeatedly injected a panoply of anti-Semitic tropes into American politics over the last few months, because some troglodytic lunatic was arrested the day before for allegedly calling her office and threatening to kill her.
If reports are true, Pat Carlineo is an incredibly stupid and potentially dangerous man who’s probably going to be spending a lot of time getting to know his attorney and/or the confines of a prison cell. CNN reported he allegedly called Omar’s office on March 21 and told a staffer, “Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are you working for her, she’s a (expletive) terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her (expletive) skull.”
Carlineo, who claims to be a Trump supporter that “hates radical Muslims in our government,” supposedly had a perfectly exculpatory alibi for the FBI: He had only said, “If our forefathers were still alive, they’d put a bullet in her head.” That makes everything better. Thankfully, he left his contact information and the spelling of his name with Omar’s office, so it wasn’t difficult for authorities to find him.
So anyway, we’re apparently dealing with a violent, unbalanced idiot here. I’m glad he’s in federal custody, as should we all be. This doesn’t make Omar’s statements about dual loyalties to Israel any less troubling. It doesn’t make her decision to retweet a message about “hook-nosed” Jews any less telling. It doesn’t erase anything she’s done before or since she’s taken office or the weak-sauce attempts the Democrats have made toward censuring her.
But don’t tell that to the press.
Bloomberg: “President Donald Trump made a sarcastic reference to Representative Ilhan Omar during a speech in Las Vegas, a day after prosecutors said a New York man was arrested for threatening to murder the freshman Minnesota Democrat.”
USA Today: “Trump trolls Rep. Omar, who was victim of death threat, boasts Israeli relations at Vegas event.”
The U.K. Independent: “Donald Trump attacked one of the first Muslim women to serve in the US Congress, hours after it emerged that death threat had been made against her. Mr Trump claimed Ilhan Omar did not like Israel at a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Las Vegas.”
“Claimed?” She said American Jews who supported Israel had dual loyalties. I think one can suss out her feelings on the matter from that alone, not to mention the fact that she says she supports the BDS movement or literally every other act she’s taken in relation to Israel.
If the man who stands accused of threatening Rep. Omar is guilty, he should obviously be doing some serious time. That being said, this loser is a blip on the radar. Rep. Omar could end up doing real and lasting damage to our polity by constantly injecting anti-Semitism into our political discourse and normalizing left-leaning antipathy toward the Jewish state and Jewish people in general.
There were 23 prosecutions for death threats against Donald Trump or individuals in the presidential line of succession last year, according to Quartz. Did we cluck at comedians who made jokes about the president in close temporal proximity to those events? Did criticism of Trump cease during that time? For that matter, did we hear about these threats at all?
Rep. Omar has still done our nation an enormous disservice with a whole line of anti-Semitic innuendoes. The events of last week didn’t change anything. It also didn’t make President Trump’s remark inappropriate, particularly given the venue.
Both the president and the crowd had every right to have a laugh at the expense of an individual who holds them in the utmost contempt.
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