Death threats increased after Trump tweet: Ilhan Omar

Ilhan Omar on Sunday that she has faced increased death threats since President Donald Trump tweeted an edited video that purports to show her being dismissive of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Ilhan is one of the first Muslim women elected to the United States Congress.

As reported by Al-Jazeera, criticising Trump over the tweet, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called to take down the video. She accused Trump of trying to incite violence against the Muslim politician. After the call though, the video disappeared as a pinned tweet at the top of Trump’s Twitter feed, but it was not deleted.

However, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Trump, saying the president has a duty to highlight Omar’s history of making comments that others deem anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive and that he wished no “ill will” upon the first-term politician.

It must be noted that Trump on Monday had tweeted that Omar is “out of control” and criticised Pelosi for defending the Minnesota Democrat.

Omar claimed that since Trump retweeted the video on Friday night, she has received many threats that referred or replied to the posted video.

She tweeted: “We are all Americans. This is endangering lives. It has to stop.”