U.S. Senator Rand Paul and President Donald J. Trump’s relationship has come a long way since the testy 2016 presidential election.
While they once unmercifully traded jabs at one another, the two have become somewhat allies in the years since Trump secured the presidency. They’ve even been spotted golfing together on multiple occasions. Just last week, while speaking with Breitbart News, Paul staunchly defended Trump over recent tweets about a few liberal Democratic Congresswomen, including U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, Minnesota. Paul suggested Omar might “appreciate America more” if she visited Somalia.
“I’ve met people who have come here from behind the Iron Curtain. They got away from communism, they’re some of the best Americans we have, because they really appreciate how great our country is, and then I hear Representative Omar say America is a terrible place,” he said. “Well, she came here and we fed her, we clothed her, she got welfare, she got [schooling], she got healthcare, and then, lo and behold, she has the honor of actually winning a seat in Congress, and she says we’re a terrible country? I think that’s about as ungrateful as you can get.”
The Kentucky senator, who ran against Trump in 2016, wasn’t done yet.
“And so — I’m willing to contribute to buy her a ticket to go visit Somalia and I think she can look and maybe learn a little bit about the disaster that is Somalia — that has no capitalism, has no God-given rights guaranteed in a constitution, and has about seven different tribes that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years,” he continued. “And then maybe after she’s visited Somalia for a while, she might come back and appreciate America more.”
Paul made his remarks to Breitbart News in Washington D.C. at Turning Point USA’s annual Teen Student Action Summit. In addition to Trump and multiple other conservative personalities, 1,500 high school students from across the USA attended the event to hear Paul speak.
Besides crucifying Trump over recent tweets about Omar, the left has been having a meltdown over a viral, edited video of the Congresswoman. Liberals claim the video was unfairly edited. However, according to TheBlaze, the unedited version paints Omar in a far worse light. The conservative media outlet reported that the edited video seemingly depicts Omar calling for enhanced surveillance on White American men rather than Muslims because they’re more of a threat. While sharing the edited version of the clip, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio tweeted, “I am sure the media will now hound every Democrat to denounce this statement as racist. Right?”
The unedited version showed her saying “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.” In the unedited clip, when the interviewer urges her to remark about the real threat of Islamic violence, Omar shifts the blame squarely onto U.S. national and regional leaders and American foreign policy.
The controversial Congresswoman said, “But I mean, I think, like I said, the focus of our policies should be about keeping Americans safe, keeping us domestically safe…and where we actually find a solution is looking at our foreign policy. Looking at how we engaging with these the members of these communities and and the kind of rhetoric that is being spewed out of leaders within our our city halls, within our state capitals, and within our nation’s capital.”
In a statement released last week, Rubio clapped back at those who attacked him for sharing the edited version of the video. The 2016 presidential candidate commented, “If a Republican grouped all men of any background or ethnicity together, in any negative context — especially terrorism — many in the media would immediately demand that other Republicans disavow their statement. But when Rep. Omar suggested white men — ?not white supremacists or white nationalists, white men — pose a greater danger than jihadists, many in the ?media rushed to her defense, and attacked me for pointing out this double standard.”
