Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) promoted a tweet on Monday fantasizing about violence against Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in response to a Breitbart News interview the senator did in which he offered to buy her a plane ticket to return to Somalia to see the conditions of the African nation.
It all started last week when at a Turning Point USA event Paul in an interview with Breitbart News’s Alana Mastrangelo said he would contribute to funding a trip to Somalia for Omar so she can see the conditions of the country in which she was born.
From Mastrangelo’s report on her interview with Paul for Breitbart News:
“I’ve met people who have come here from behind the Iron Curtain,”Paul said. “They got away from communism, they’re some of the best Americans we have, because they really appreciate how great our country is, and then I hear Representative Omar say America is a terrible place.” “Well, she came here and we fed her, we clothed her, she got welfare, she got [schooling], she got healthcare, and then, lo and behold, she has the honor of actually winning a seat in Congress, and she says we’re a terrible country? I think that’s about as ungrateful as you can get,” continued the senator. “And so — I’m willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to go visit Somalia,” he continued, “and I think she can look and maybe learn a little bit about the disaster that is Somalia — that has no capitalism, has no God-given rights guaranteed in a constitution, and has about seven different tribes that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years.” “And then maybe after she’s visited Somalia for a while,” Paul added, “she might come back and appreciate America more.”
Sara Carter, a conservative journalist, then tweeted a video clip from the interview:
Story cited here.
.@RandPaul on @IlhanMN: "I’m willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to visit #Somalia… she can look and maybe learn a little bit about the disaster that is Somalia." “After she’s visited Somalia she might come back and appreciate America more.” https://t.co/g4Hmw0J1HH pic.twitter.com/RKjSASWbne
— Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) July 27, 2019
In response to that tweet, Intercept columnist Mehdi Hasan tweeted a criticism of Paul: