WASHINGTON – Rep. Ilhan Omar has found herself at the center of a effort by congressional Republicans to punish those who celebrated the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk or spoke ill of him after his death.
Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who’s running for governor in her home state of South Carolina, brought a resolution forward this week that seeks to censure Omar and strip her of her committee assignments for speaking critically of Kirk after his death.
Democrats are defending Omar, who quickly condemned Kirk’s assassination but grappled with his legacy during an interview shortly after his shooting. Democratic leadership plans to try to block Mace’s resolution Wednesday evening.
“Nancy Mace wants to lecture Ilhan Omar and Democrats about civility. Are you kidding me?” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters during a news conference. “It’s not a serious effort. It’s an effort to drive donors into her gubernatorial campaign.”
A video clip of Omar from an interview she did after Kirk’s assassination was widely shared and rebuked by the right, which accused her of celebrating Kirk’s death.
In the clip, she discussed his position on guns and criticized Kirk for downplaying the death of George Floyd, as well as slavery and “what Black people have gone through in this country by saying Juneteenth should never exist.”
Things intensified after Omar reposted a video on social media of a narrator criticizing Kirk for being a “stochastic terrorist, an adamant transphobe.”