Ilhan Omar has issued cutting remarks to Nancy Mace in an acerbic exchange over the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, suggesting she might be “drunk.”
The Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota was responding to a post from her MAGA colleague suggesting she may be grieving Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in airstrikes on Saturday morning.
“My heart goes out to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib tonight,” Rep. Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, posted on X, sharing a breaking news graphic from Fox News confirming the Ayatollah’s death.
“Sending them thoughts and prayers.”
Omar and Tlaib were the first two Muslim women elected to the House of Representatives, and are frequent targets of MAGA supporters. Both have been persistent critics of the Trump administration.
In her response on X, Omar rose to the occasion and clapped back with a dig of her own.
“I hope you aren’t drunk and took your staff’s advice,” Omar wrote, in an apparent reference to allegations by former staffers that Mace abused alcohol and cannabis during her time in office.
Mace was described as “befuddled” on a 2022 trip to Europe by staff who say that the congresswoman demanded the firing of a staffer for releasing the same travel details to reporters that Mace herself had told a roomful of journalists a day prior.
“She would definitely do it excessively,” a staffer with Mace on the Europe trip alleged to New York Magazine about her travels. “And again, not to say that most members don’t or most staff don’t, but it got to the point where it was an issue.”
Omar resurfaced those allegations as she poured cold water on the suggestion she may be connected to the Ayatollah, saying “Rashida and I don’t know this man and feel confident he didn’t care about us.”
“Please restrain from drinking too much as you have been warned from your staff and stay off social media when you are drunk.”
Omar ended with a personal plea for Mace’s well-being during Ramadan: “I pray in [t]his holy month you find peace and respect for your self.”
Omar and Tlaib, like many of their liberal colleagues, are strongly opposed to what Omar described on X as “an illegal regime change war.”
”As someone who has survived the horrors of war, I know military strikes will not make us safer; they will inflame tensions and push the region further into chaos,” she said.
Omar, who was a young child when her family fled from Somalia as refugees, added: "When we abandon diplomacy, we choose destruction."
Tlaib has been similarly scathing in her criticism of the strikes on Iran, posting on X that President Trump “doesn’t care about our loved ones in the military.”
"He doesn't care about the fact that Americans don't want this war,” Tlaib said, responding to a clip of the commander in chief acknowledging the likelihood of American casualties.
"He doesn't care about the Iranian people. He is corrupted. Don't fall for the lies."
Last week, Omar and Tlaib heckled Trump at his State of the Union speech, shouting to interrupt the president after he began boasting of his immigration crackdown in Omar’s home state.
“You have killed Americans!” Omar could be heard shouting repeatedly, apparently referencing the two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
“You should be ashamed,” Omar, who has frequently been the target of Trump’s ire, added.
Inside Mar-a-Lago’s makeshift Situation Room as Trump strikes Iran
Iran-US war latest: Trump says ‘we’re knocking the c**p out of them’
Who is Ali Larijani? Top Iranian official expected to step into power vacuum
Iran's World Cup place in U.S. put in doubt by Middle East conflict. FIFA has Iraq next in line
New poll suggests Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s Iran operation
Hegseth says Iran won’t be a ‘politically correct’ war as he lays out US objectives
