Nancy Pelosi Slams Donald Trump For Offensive Video About 9/11 Attacks
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed President Donald Trump on Saturday for his post depicting Rep. Ilhan Omar as being dismissive of the 9/11 attacks. Pelosi called the president out for using “painful” images of the attack for his own political gains, according to The Hill.
“The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence. The President shouldn’t use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack,” Pelosi said. “It is wrong for the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe.”
The president tweeted a video on Friday that had been edited to suggest that Omar, who is a Muslim, was being flippant about the devastating attacks. The video shows Omar while speaking with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), taking a line out of context to say that “some people did something,” in reference to the attacks.
The full quote actually references the plight of Muslim-Americans, whom she says have been relegated to living as second-class citizens after extremists attacked the country. She said that many people had lost civil liberties in the U.S. and that was the impetus for founding CAIR “after 9/11.” However, Omar’s spokesperson said that she misspoke and wanted to say that the council was founded in 1994 and saw a dramatic increase in membership after the 9/11 attacks seven years later.
But the president’s tweet shows a snippet Omar’s speech followed by news coverage of the planes hitting the buildings on September 11, leaving out the full context of the speech. The statement, which plays on a loop, has a very different meaning when placed in the context of the rest of the video.
WE WILL NEVER FORGET! pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019
Trump immediately faced a backlash from lawmakers and citizens alike. Senator Elizabeth Warren came to Omar’s defense, saying that Trump is encouraging violence against Muslims in the country.
“The President is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman—and an entire group of Americans based on their religion. It’s disgusting. It’s shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it,” she tweeted.
Senator Bernie Sanders also came to the Representative’s defense, as The Inquisitr previously reported. He said that Omar is a courageous leader and called Trump’s tweet one of “racism and hate.” He also called the attack against her “disgusting and dangerous.”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out in a tweet for members of Congress to speak out about Trump’s attack on Omar.
Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President’s explicit attack today.@IlhanMN’s life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress.
We must speak out.
“First they came…” pic.twitter.com/ygOX1vhE9j
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 12, 2019
After Trump’s tweet, the hashtag #ISTandWithIlhan began trending on Twitter, indicating that the lawmaker has broad support despite the president’s rhetoric.
