Rep. Ilhan Omar said Tuesday night that Fox News hosts “know how to whip up their base into frenzy” about Afghan refugees.
Omar, a former Somalian refugee herself, told MSNBC’s Joy Reid, “The reality is that we’ve been in this conflict — in this war — for 20 years. There are people who’ve helped us in this mission. There are people whose lives are going to be at risk and we have to do everything that we can to bring them to safety and we’ve done this many times where we have evacuated people, airlifted them into safe spaces so that we can properly vet them and have them come to the United States as vetted refugees. I know a little bit about that, you know?”
Prior to Omar’s statements on “The ReidOut,” Reid rolled clips of Fox News personalities like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham objecting to America taking in those fleeing Afghanistan, which fell under Taliban rule over the weekend.
Omar described that as “not surprising” and part of the Fox News “playbook,” but also focused her half of the conversation on her own experiences.
“I know what it’s like to be a child in a family scrambling for safety in a war-torn country. I know the rigorous process you go through to get vetted as a refugee. We are the most vetted people who come to the United States. The process is long and it doesn’t just end when you arrive on the shores. It continues for years until you are eligible for citizenship at five years of entrance,” she explained.
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