Washington (CNN) Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar's fellow freshman lawmakers are coming to the Minnesota congresswoman's defense Thursday, saying remarks she made referencing 9/11 as "some people did something" were misrepresented in a critical New York Post cover that featured the Twin Towers.

Speaking at an event last month for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Omar said, "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

The New York Post published Thursday's tabloid with the quote from Omar, who is one of two Muslim women in Congress, and an image of the Twin Towers engulfed in flames from September 11, 2001. Under the picture is the headline "Here's your something."

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called the Post cover a "politically motivated attack," adding that the backlash against Omar is "getting to the level where this is an incitement of violence against progressive women of color."

"We are getting to the level where this is an incitement of violence against progressive women of color and if they can't figure out how to get it back to policy we need to call it out for what it is because this is not normal and this is not a normal level of political debate or rhetoric," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at a House Democrats' retreat in Virginia. "As wild as it can get sometimes this is something beyond what is normal."

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