Rep Ilhan Omar offered searing criticism for the House Republican leader on Sunday after he did not condemn members of his caucus including Rep Lauren Boebert for a series of deeply offensive comments about her Islamic faith.
The Minnesota congresswoman appeared on CNN’s State of the Union for an interview with host Jake Tapper after an Islamophobic joke made by Ms Boebert last month was revealed by the network to be only the tip of an iceberg of similar comments made by the far-right congresswoman.
Ms Omar blamed Rep Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, for not doing more to condemn the remarks and discipline his members for racist or otherwise deeply offensive comments; in Ms Omar’s case, the Colorado congresswoman joked (and directly argued, in later serious remarks) that she was a terrorist.
“McCarthy is a liar and a coward. He doesn’t have the ability to condemn the kind of bigoted Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric that are being trafficked by a member of his caucus,” she said.
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