Friday July 19, 2019
Photo by: J. Scott Applewhite
Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., center, joins Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., left, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as Sanders prepares to introduce new legislation to reduce what Americans pay for prescription drugs, especially brand-name drugs deemed "excessively priced," during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) ** FILE **
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders teamed up Thursday with Rep. Ilhan Omar for a fundraising pitch in response to the crowd at President Trump’s rally chanting “send her back.”
“Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won’t back down to Trump’s racism and hate, and neither will we,” Mr. Sanders wrote in the email to supporters.
He asked for a donation of $2.70, which is a nod to 270 electoral votes need to win the presidential election. The money would be split between the Sanders presidential campaign and Ms. Omar’s re-election campaign, he said.
By embracing Ms. Omar, who has been criticized for using anti-Semitic tropes and for being an
apologist for Islamic terrorist, Mr. Sanders seeks to reinvigorate his far-left campaign.
“She knows, as we do, that Trump is a demagogue doing what he does best: dividing and conquering through hate,” said Mr. Sanders, who is Jewish.
Mr. Trump targeted Ms. Omar and three other far-left congresswomen who together are known as “The Squad” with criticism of their socialist ideology and what he calls anti-American rhetoric.
Mr. Trump on Sunday tweeted that the four congresswomen should “go back” to “places from which they came” if they don’t love America, which prompted Democrats to condemn him as a racist.
Then the crowd at a Trump rally Wednesday began chanting “send her back” about Ms. Omar, who came to the U.S. from Somalia as a child.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump disavowed the chants of “send her back,” saying he attempted to quickly resume his rally speech when the crowd began the chant.
In the fundraising email, Mr. Sanders said that he was at dinner with Ms. Omar and other members of Congress when they learned of the Trump rally chant.
“To my surprise, Ilhan was pretty unfazed. Sadly, as she told me, she has been dealing with this kind of hatred and racism for a long time,” he wrote.
He said the president was attacking Ms. Omar and the other members of “The Squad” instead of answering for people losing health care, tax breaks for the wealthy or the crisis of climate change.
“But he will try to divide the country up based on the color of our skin, our religion, where we were born or our sexual orientation.
“Brothers and sisters: Now is the time, more than at any other moment in our lifetimes, to say NO to racism, NO to divisiveness, NO to the hatred that Trump is trying to foment,” said Mr. Sanders.