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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sparred with CNN host Kaitlan Collins on Friday over a video the liberal lawmaker shared on social media and her remarks about Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.
Collins pressed Omar on why she reposted a video that said, “Kirk was Dr. Frankenstein and his monster shot him through the neck.”
“Because there were a lot of things in the video that I did agree with. Obviously, we share videos. We don‘t have to agree with every single word, but I do believe he was a reprehensible, hateful man. Like, that is my view of the words that he has said about every single identity that I belong to. He didn‘t believe that we should have equal access to anything. He also just didn’t even believe I could be smart enough, I could have thoughts that could be equal to a White man. Where are we missing this conversation about who this man was and the things that he said?”
Singling out Collins, Omar asked, “How do you not… find that reprehensible, Kaitlan?”
Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10 while speaking at a campus event in Utah.
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The lawmaker turned the question back to Collins, who said, “Of course, I don’t subscribe to that.”
Omar asked Collins, “You think I don’t have the brain processing power like you or a White man?” The CNN host said, “Of course not” as Omar asked her if she would find that reprehensible.
“I’m not asking why you think he’s reprehensible. I think you’re obviously allowed to have your own views. That’s why we have you on here so often. Because we like to hear your views and what you think on something. I just think it was the video where it called him Dr. Frankenstein and said his monster shot him through the neck. I mean, obviously, this is a person. And looking at this, this is someone who was a husband and a father. And in the days after his shocking death, that happened as a result of his views or happened as a result as he was sharing his views publicly with people, that people found it jarring to hear such criticism of that in the immediate aftermath of his death,” Collins said.
Omar said she found it jarring that people wanted to memorialize Kirk and excuse “reprehensible things” that he said.
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“It is one thing to care about his life, because obviously so many people loved him, including his children and wife. But I am not going to sit here and be judged for not wanting to honor any legacy this man has left behind, that should be in the dustbin of history, and we should hopefully move on and forget the hate that he spewed every single day,” Omar continued.
Omar was criticized over an interview she did with Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan after Kirk’s assassination.
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Omar expressed condolences for Kirk’s family but went on to criticize him during the interview.
“But what I do know for sure is that Charlie Kirk was someone who once said, ‘Guns save lives’ after a school shooting,” Omar said. “Charlie was someone who was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police … downplay slavery and what Black people have gone through in this country by saying Juneteenth should never exist.”
Omar went on to lament that there are a “lot of people who are out there talking” about Kirk “just wanting to have a civil debate,” prompting Hasan to interject and call it a “complete rewriting of history.”
Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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