Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has questioned President Trump’s cognitive decline by citing his jaw-dropping reaction to an attack on the Democrat during a town hall on Tuesday night.
Omar was sprayed with a syringe full of what officials say is apple cider vinegar during a town hall event in Minneapolis on Tuesday evening. The attacker, 55-year-old Anthony J. Kazmierczak, has been confirmed to be a Trump supporter who told a neighbor he was heading to the town hall and claimed, “I might get arrested.”
After the incident, Trump raged against his political foe and suggested that it was concocted by Omar.
“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” Trump said in response to an ABC reporter.
Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, Trump mentioned Omar by name during a rally in Iowa, which prompted the crowd to boo loudly.
Calling Omar a “wise guy,” Trump said, “She comes from a country that’s a disaster,” referencing her Somali heritage. “It’s not even a country... They’re good at one thing-pirates.”
During a press conference in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Omar directly called out Trump’s confusion and his ongoing “obsession” with her, referencing the president’s repeated criticisms and insults.
“I wouldn’t be where I am at today, having to pay for security, having the government think about providing me security, if Donald Trump wasn’t in office and if he wasn’t so obsessed with me,” Omar said.
“It is ironic that... he was on stage moments before I was attacked talking about me? And then when asked about my attack, he said, ‘I don’t think about her’. Does he not remember? Is he suffering from dementia?”
She added, “How do you spend 20, 30 minutes on stage obsessing over me, by name, multiple times, and then moments later, say, ‘Ilhan Omar? I don’t think about her.’”
The 79-year-old’s memory has been under the spotlight over the last year. Moments include calling Greenland “Iceland” in Davos last week, while this week he required White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to remind him of the name of his father’s health condition.
“He had one problem. At a certain age, about 86, 87, he started getting—what do they call it?” Trump said, with Leavitt interjecting, “Alzheimer’s.” It is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by memory loss.
On Wednesday, Omar linked a heightened number of death threats to Trump’s return to, noting they had “plummeted” during Joe Biden’s term as president.
“The facts have shown, since I’ve gotten into elected office, is that every time the President of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me, and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,” she said.
Omar said during Trump’s first term in office, she had to have six Capitol Police officers providing a 24-hour security detail to her and her family.
“Then he came back into office,” she said. “And he reassumed his vitriol. And now, my death threats are the highest of the members of Congress.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Omar’s office for comment.
During an interview on CNN’s The Source on Wednesday, host Kaitlan Collins compared Omar’s response to the president’s attempted assassination in July 2024, with that of Trump’s response to Tuesday’s attack.
“Well, the difference between the president and I is that I was raised to be a decent human being, and my faith teaches me to have compassion and he lacks both of those things,” Omar said.
She also repeated her claim that Trump “seems to exhibit some sort of dementia,” adding that “maybe it is time for the 25th amendment to be invoked, because he certainly cannot remember what he has said and done an hour ago.”
Omar also spoke to MS Now’s All In With Chris Hayes on Wednesday, who said when she saw a man “plunging towards me” and that she initially thought he was spitting on her.
“So I instinctively tried to, like, punch him basically, for trying to spit on me,” Omar said, saying she learned from being raised by three older brothers, “that maybe taking the first punch when somebody is bigger than you yields you better results.”
She clarified she “was not able to make contact with him,” and that Kazmierczak was “saved by the security” who tackled him.
On The Source, host Collins asked Omar what would have happened if her security had not gotten to her assailant first.
“Well, I‘m fortunate I didn‘t get to him because I‘d probably be catching charges as well,” Omar said.
She added that it was a “human reaction” to retaliate against “someone that is trying to degrade you,” noting she has “never been able to back down to cowards who act in ways that are disgusting in society.”
Collins also raised Trump’s Justice Department investigation, with Omar saying previous examinations “haven’t moved on” because they found no evidence of “wrongdoing.”
“There‘s always been an attempt to smear my character, to smear the character of the community that I ethnically belong to,” she said.
