WASHINGTON, USA — President Donald Trump said Thursday he asked Somalia’s president to “take back” Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born US congresswoman who has long been one of his favorite political targets, triggering a sharp rebuke from the Minnesota Democrat.
Trump made the comments in the Oval Office after signing an executive order to clear the way for TikTok to become an American-owned company.
“I met the head of Somalia,” Trump told reporters. “I suggested that maybe he’d like to take her back. And he said, ‘I don’t want her.'”
Omar responded swiftly on her official X account. “From denying Somalia had a president to making up a story, President Trump is a lying buffoon,” Omar wrote. “No one should take this embarrassing fool seriously.”
The clash came days after a resolution to censure Omar and strip her of committee assignments failed in the House.
Speaking last week aboard Air Force One, Trump doubled down. “I think she’s terrible. I think she should be impeached,” he said. “Do they have a president? Do they have a council? Do they have anything? Do they have police? They come from a place with nothing, and then they tell us how to run our country.”
He added: “If she got censured, that’s great. If she got impeached, that’s even better.”
On his Truth Social platform, Trump also attacked Somalia directly, portraying Omar’s country of birth as plagued by “a lack of central government control, persistent poverty, hunger, resurgent terrorism, piracy, decades of civil war, corruption and pervasive violence.”
He said 70 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty and accused Somali authorities of running “a dysfunctional government riddled with bribery and embezzlement.”
Omar, elected in 2018 as one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, has repeatedly clashed with Trump. In 2019, she was a central target of his “send her back” rally chants, which drew widespread criticism as racist.
Despite that backlash, Trump has continued to highlight Omar’s Somali heritage to attack her politically, while right-wing lawmakers and commentators often cite her outspoken criticism of US foreign policy and Israel as grounds for her removal from Congress.
The latest flare-up underscores how Omar remains a lightning rod in American politics — a progressive Democrat facing sustained hostility from Trump and his allies as the presidential campaign season heats up.