Marco Rubio has come under fire for posting a doctored video clip of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made to look as if she was making an attack against white people, leading a reporter to shame the Florida Senator when he refused to delete it.
Rubio had shared a clip from a 2018 interview that the Minnesota congresswoman had done with Al Jazeera in which she was asked about Islamic terrorism and whether it was right for Americans to be fearful of Muslims. As The Hill reported, Omar pointed out that there have been more terrorist attacks in the United States carried out by white men, and if fear was the main motivating factor then people would be crafting more policies to stop white terrorism.
“I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,” she replied.
“And so if fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe — Americans safe inside of this country — we should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”
But the clip that Rubio posted had selectively edited Omar’s remarks, making it look as if she had just said, “We should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”
Rubio was immediately called out by Mehdi Hasan, who conducted the interview for Al Jazeera . Hasan wrote to Rubio on Twitter that the clip he shared had been selectively edited and called on him to delete it and apologize. He pointed out to Rubio that that video was twisted to make Omar look bad, noting that she already receives a number of death threats.
“Shame on you,” Hasan tweeted.
Ilhan Omar has become a major target of the right in the months she has been in office since winning her seat in the 2018 midterm elections. She has been called out a number of times by President Donald Trump, who, in a tweet, said she should go back to her “original” country. Omar is a naturalized citizen who emigrated to the United States from Somalia.
More proof of how many in media have an outrage double standard
Republican’s don’t get benefit of “context” from many (not all) in media for saying things far less provocative. Ask Ron DeSantis smeared as a racist comment in an interview. https://t.co/3Tcc52trI3
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 25, 2019
Trump refused to apologize for the tweet, and days later as he laid into Omar at a campaign rally, Trump’s supporters chanted “Send her back!” Trump would later disavow the chant, claiming that he tried to speak quickly in order to stop them. Video from the rally showed that Trump fell silent as the chant started, and he did not resume speaking until the chant was over.
Marco Rubio has not deleted his tweet with the selectively edited clip of Ilhan Omar’s remarks.
