David Gregory: Omar facing death threats ‘because of something the president has directly done’

CNN political analyst David Gregory said early Monday that the increase in death threats against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is due to something President Trump “has directly done.”

Gregory, speaking on “New Day,” ripped Trump for posting a video Friday with images of the 9/11 terror attack spliced with words from the freshman lawmaker, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress.

“It’s an extraordinary situation that she is facing this kind of danger because of something the president has directly done, which is completely wrong,” Gregory said.

.@davidgregory says it’s “extraordinary” that Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has experienced an increase in death threats, is “facing this danger because of something the President has directly done, which is completely wrong.” https://t.co/btDTgZ8IO1 pic.twitter.com/cQFZbsFrYG

— New Day (@NewDay) April 15, 2019

{mosads}Omar said at a speech last month at the Council on American-Islamic Relations that the organization was founded after 9/11 because “some people did something” and Muslims “were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

In a statement Sunday night, she said she has faced an increase in death threats since the video was posted by Trump.

Gregory added on Monday that while Omar should face some scrutiny for her controversial comments about the 9/11 attacks, Trump went too far.

“Congresswoman Omar, I think, was making a very important point about what it was like to be a Muslim in America after 9/11,” Gregory said.

“How many Muslims were targeted, including by politicians like Donald Trump, who continue to be targeted by politicians, including Donald Trump. And she also in making that point, the way she said it, didn’t show the kind of reverence for 9/11 that I think is be fitting anyone in America, certainly a member of Congress. And then she deserves to be called out for that,” he said.

“But in the way that President Trump did it, it completely obliterates that point of calling her out and makes her a target of violence and conflates what she said with somehow complicit in 9/11, which is just grotesque,” he added. “And so that’s what we lose in this political dialogue, is an ability to call somebody out, to make a legitimate point by complete overstatement.”

Gregory also said that he thought Trump was using Omar as his most recent foil, something he has done with other new and prominent Democratic lawmakers.

CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted that the one thing everyone Trump has attempted to vilify have in common is that they are all people of color.

“He’s always after people of color, and that is not a coincidence,” Toobin said.

–Joe Concha contributed to this report, which was updated at 10:57 a.m.