Rep. Ilhan Omar on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of long-harbored and deep-seated “inherent racism,” as the president has launched into another week of fiery attacks on the Minnesota Democrat and three other freshman progressive congresswomen.

“Right now, even when we’re talking about the president, people will say, you know, his remarks are racist, and we’ll forget the inherent racism that has always been part of him,” Omar said, criticizing how Trump “always takes an opportunity to others to vilify them and destroy their existence and ability to access our justice system.”


Omar went on to cite Trump’s calls three decades ago to reinstate the death penalty amid the “Central Park Five” case — a campaign by the real estate mogul that Omar characterized Tuesday as “going out of your way to ask for lynching for five innocent young men.”

Omar’s remarks at the Muslim Collective for Equitable Democracy conference in Washington came less than an hour after Trump namechecked the lawmaker in a tweet, referencing her and the liberal House Democrats he has also repeatedly strafed: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

“In 2016 I almost won Minnesota. In 2020, because of America hating anti-Semite Rep. Omar, & the fact that Minnesota is having its best economic year ever, I will win the State!” Trump wrote online .

He added: “‘We are going to be a nightmare to the President,’ she say. No, AOC Plus 3 are a Nightmare for America!”


Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who has traded barbs with Trump since addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2016, spoke alongside Omar on Tuesday and praised the congresswoman as she remains the subject of the president's ire.

"It is her courage, her work, her determination that has made her a symbol of American democracy, multiracial democracy," Khan said. "Watch history. Her name and other colleagues, their names will be written in golden letters on the pages of history because of their courage and because of what they stand for.”