Representative Lauren Boebert made an overture to Representative Ilhan Omar aft suggesting that the Muslim lawmaker was a coercion threat. The telephone did not spell well.
Nov. 29, 2021, 6:47 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Some gulfs are excessively wide to bridge, but it appeared astatine archetypal arsenic if Representative Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican from Colorado, was trying to bash truthful connected Monday erstwhile she reached retired to Representative Ilhan Omar, the progressive Democrat from Minnesota.
Ms. Boebert, a freshman who has built her little governmental vocation connected incendiary comments and right-wing provocations, angered Democrats implicit the Thanksgiving interruption when a video surfaced of her suggesting that Ms. Omar, a Muslim who wears a hijab, could beryllium a termination bomber, and bragging to constituents astir confronting Ms. Omar connected an elevator with an Islamophobic epithet.
On Monday, Ms. Boebert reached retired to Ms. Omar, ostensibly to apologize. It did not spell well.
Ms. Omar has said the elevator incidental ne'er happened, but the 2 lawmakers’ accounts of Monday’s telephone telephone bash not disagree much, down to Ms. Omar abruptly hanging up connected Ms. Boebert. Both came distant doubly aggrieved — Ms. Omar calling the apology woefully inadequate and Ms. Boebert proclaiming herself a unfortunate of a hypersensitive governmental culture.
“Instead of apologizing for her Islamophobic comments and fabricated lies, Representative Boebert refused to publically admit her hurtful and unsafe comments,” Ms. Omar said successful a connection aft the little call. “She alternatively doubled down connected her rhetoric, and I decided to extremity the unproductive call.”
Specifically, Ms. Boebert called to archer her adversary that she was a “strong Christian woman” and had erred erstwhile she attacked Ms. Omar connected her Muslim religion alternatively of connected the issues that disagreement them, said Ben Stout, Ms. Boebert’s property secretary. She said she should not person recounted to supporters however she brushed speech a Capitol Police officer’s evident interest astir her sharing an elevator with Ms. Omar aft noticing that the Democratic congresswoman was not wearing a backpack, nor should she person called her a subordinate of the “jihad squad.”
Ms. Omar past demanded a nationalist apology, so, Ms. Boebert said successful a video connected Instagram, “I told Ilhan Omar that she should marque a nationalist apology to the American radical for her anti-American, antisemitic, anti-police rhetoric. She continued to press, and I continued to property back.”
The 2 women person their fans and detractors, but they could not beryllium much different. Ms. Omar, a Somali exile and a person of the House Progressive Caucus, represents a divers and wide territory that includes astir of Minneapolis and its near-in suburbs. Ms. Boebert, the proprietor of Shooters Grill successful Rifle, Colo., which she reopened during the pandemic against authorities orders and wherever servers are encouraged to transportation guns, unseated a five-term Republican successful 2020 by moving acold to his close successful a mostly agrarian upland district.
Ms. Omar has had her run-ins with Jewish members of Congress, including Democrats, who saw her disapproval of Israel arsenic swerving into antisemitic tropes. Many Democrats person distanced themselves from the “defund the police” question that Ms. Omar has embraced.
But Democrats are not astir to let Ms. Boebert to lecture them connected probity, not aft she embraced the prevarication that the 2020 predetermination was rigged and tweeted accusation astir Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts during the Jan. 6 onslaught connected the Capitol. Her vow to bring guns onto the House level prompted Democratic leaders to instal metallic detectors astatine the entrances — a changeless reminder of the sick volition that separates the parties.
The full House Democratic enactment released a associated connection connected Friday calling retired Ms. Boebert’s “racism” and the Republican leadership’s “repeated nonaccomplishment to condemn inflammatory and bigoted rhetoric from members of their conference.”
“Congresswoman Boebert’s repeated, ongoing and targeted Islamophobic comments and actions against different subordinate of Congress, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, are some profoundly violative and concerning,” Democratic leaders wrote.
But aft censuring Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, and stripping him of his committee assignments for posting a doctored video depicting him slashing the cervix of a Democratic House member, and kicking Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, disconnected her committees for societal media posts calling for unit against Democrats, House leaders were not rushing to punish Ms. Boebert.
And Ms. Boebert, sensing governmental opportunity, was not astir to backmost down.
“Rejecting an apology and hanging up connected idiosyncratic is cancel civilization 101 and a pillar of the Democrat Party,” she said successful her video statement.
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