Ilhan Omar applauded after calling audience member’s question ‘appalling’

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called a question from an audience member in which she was asked to make a statement on female genital mutilation “appalling” and “frustrating.”

During the question-and-answer portion of the Muslim Caucus Education Collective’s 2019 conference on Tuesday, an audience member asked Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who was not in attendance, to make a statement on the issue.

{mosads}Omar was visibly irritated by the question, saying she is asked too often to condemn various issues that other lawmakers are not asked about.

“How often? Should I make a schedule? Does this need to be on repeat every five minutes? Should I be like, so today I forgot to condemn al Qaeda, so here’s the al Qaeda one. Today I forgot to condemn FGM [female genital mutilation], so here we go. Today I forgot to condemn Hamas,” she said.

She also said that “it is a very frustrating question that comes up.”

Omar pointed to bills and resolution her name was on as evidence of her stance against female genital mutilation.

“I am quite disgusted really, to be honest, that as Muslim legislators we are constantly being asked to waste our time speaking to issues that other people are not asked to speak to,” Omar said.

She made clear that she thought female genital mutilation is “so abhorrent, so offensive, so evil, so vile.”

“If you want us to speak as politicians, American politicians, then you treat us as such,” Omar said as other audience members applauded.

Omar and Tlaib last year became the first two Muslim women elected to Congress.

The conference in Washington on anti-Muslim rhetoric comes a little more than a week after President Trump lashed out at Omar and three other minority female lawmakers in a tweet telling them to “go back” to the countries they came from.

All four lawmakers Trump attacked are U.S. citizens, and Omar is the only one born outside of the country. She came to the U.S. as a refugee at the age of 12 with her family after fleeing Somalia.