Omar Facing Possible Punishment For Disparaging Remark About Charlie Kirk
House Republican leaders are weighing harsh action against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after her recent remarks about the late Charlie Kirk drew widespread condemnation.
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who is running for U.S. Senate, is leading an effort to strip Omar of her committee assignments. Carter accused her and the “radical left” of normalizing the practice of meeting free speech with violence.
On Monday, the Georgia Republican introduced a motion to remove Omar from the House Budget Committee and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where she serves as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.
Critics seized on Omar’s remarks last week in an interview with former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan, where she said Charlie Kirk’s death reminded her of his past positions on gun control.
“But what I do know for sure is that Charlie Kirk was someone who once said, ‘Guns save lives’ after a school shooting,” Omar said. “Charlie was someone who was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police … downplay slavery and what Black people have gone through in this country by saying Juneteenth should never exist.”
Omar then disagreed with commentators who framed Kirk as “just wanting to have a civil debate,” which led Hasan to call falsely label their characterization a “complete rewriting of history.”
“Yeah,” Omar responded. “There is nothing more effed up than to completely pretend that his words and actions have not been recorded and in existence for the last decade or so.” She went on to accuse President Donald Trump of “incit[ing] violence against people like me,” though she has never been attacked or assaulted by someone on the right.
“These people are full of s**t,” Omar told Hasan about Republicans in general. “And it’s important for us to call them out while we feel anger and sadness, and have, you know, empathy, which Charlie said, ‘No, it shouldn’t exist,’ because that’s a newly created word or something.”
She later tried to walk back her remarks on X, but Carter and some other Republican lawmakers aren’t having it.
“Disparaging Charlie Kirk’s legacy, a God-fearing, honorable man, for boldly sharing his conservative beliefs is disgusting. The radical left has normalized meeting free speech with violence, and it must stop,” he told Fox News.
“No one who justifies the assassination of someone with different political views than them deserves to sit on a committee, and Ilhan Omar openly used language that incites violence toward her political opponents. Committees are for serious lawmakers, not hate-spewing politicians,” he added.
Kirk, 31, founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated last week during a campus speaking event at Utah Valley University, sparking national outrage, a massive manhunt, and renewed debate over political violence in America.
He was delivering remarks under a tent to a crowd of roughly 3,000 students and supporters on September 10 when a sniper-style shot struck him in the neck. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died shortly afterward.
Witnesses described chaos as attendees screamed, ducked for cover, and fled the courtyard.
Authorities have identified the alleged shooter as Tyler James Robinson, 22, of Utah. He was arrested two days later after a 33-hour manhunt, when his father recognized him from surveillance images released by the FBI and turned him in.
Robinson is being held without bail in Utah County Jail and is under “special watch” pending a mental health evaluation. He is expected to face charges of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, and obstruction of justice when he makes his first court appearance on Tuesday.
Under Utah law, a conviction for aggravated murder carries the possibility of the death penalty.
