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  • 2019-07-26 (xsd:date)
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  • Did U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar Describe America as a 'Rotten Country'? (en)
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  • On July 15, 2019, Kentucky TV station WAVE asked U.S. Sen. Rand Paul about controversial tweets directed at Rep. Ilhan Omar and other progressive Democratic congresswomen from President Donald Trump. In those tweets, President Trump had suggested those members of Congress should go back to the countries they came from. Rep. Omar, a representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, is a refugee from Somalia. As part of his response, Sen. Paul, R-Ky., suggested Omar was unappreciative of the U.S., stating that: Paul also was quoted in WAVE’s reporting as declaring, I think she does deserve a rebuke over trying to say we have a rotten country. The suggestion that Omar literally stated America is a rotten country made it into the headlines of several publications, including a Washington Examiner article shared by, among others, former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle and retweeted over 10,000 times. Social media shares and commentary related to these headlines indicated readers believed Omar had literally described America, the country, as rotten: We reached out to Sen. Paul’s office for clarification on his comment, asking which statement or statements of Omar's he was referencing, and if he was alleging that she literally called America a rotten country or if he was characterizing remarks she made as saying as much. Finally, we asked which of Omar’s remarks Paul believed amounted to a description of America as a rotten country. A spokesperson for Paul did not provide the requested clarification but instead reiterated via email that the senator viewed Omar’s continued criticism as unfair considering how much Rep. Omar has achieved: We found no public statements made by Omar in which she described America as rotten. A spokesperson for Omar told us he had no record of her ever saying that. Omar has written publicly about her pride in America and its democratic processes, especially those that allow for criticism. In a July 25, 2019, New York Times op-ed, for exampled, Omar wrote: The suggestion that Omar described America as a rotten country, as portrayed in news headlines, appears to stem from words Paul — not Omar — used. We therefore issue a rating of false for this claim. (en)
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