Boebert in call refuses to apologize for anti-Muslim remarks

WASHINGTON – Days aft firebrand blimpish Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was harshly criticized for making anti-Muslim comments astir Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat whom she likened to a bomb-carrying terrorist, the 2 spoke by telephone Monday.

By some lawmakers' accounts, it did not spell well.

The conversation, which Boebert sought aft issuing a tepid connection past Friday, offered an accidental to widen an olive subdivision successful a House riven by tension. Instead, it ended abruptly aft Boebert rejected Omar's petition for a nationalist apology, amplifying partisan strife that has go a feature, not a bug, of the GOP since a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol connected Jan. 6.

Boebert antecedently apologized “to anyone successful the Muslim assemblage I offended," but not straight to Omar.

It's conscionable the latest illustration of a GOP lawmaker making a idiosyncratic onslaught against different subordinate of Congress, an unsettling trend that has gone mostly unchecked by House Republican leaders. It besides offers a trial of Democrats' newfound resoluteness to mete retired punishment to Republicans.

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Earlier this period blimpish Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona was censured implicit a convulsive video. In February Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was booted from legislature committees for her inflammatory rhetoric.

After Monday's telephone call, Omar and Boebert rapidly issued statements condemning each other.

“I judge successful engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not erstwhile that disagreement is rooted successful outright bigotry and hate,” Omar said successful a statement. She said she “decided to extremity the unproductive call.”

Boebert changeable backmost successful an Instagram video: “Rejecting an apology and hanging up connected idiosyncratic is portion of cancel civilization 101 and a pillar of the Democrat Party."

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The concatenation of events was acceptable successful question implicit a week agone erstwhile a video posted to Facebook showed Boebert speaking earlier constituents, describing an enactment with Omar — an enactment that Omar maintains ne'er happened.

In the video, the freshman Colorado lawmaker claims that a Capitol Police serviceman approached her with “fret connected his face” soon earlier she stepped aboard a House elevator and the doors closed.

“I look to my near and determination she is — Ilhan Omar. And I said, ‘Well, she doesn’t person a backpack. We should beryllium fine,’" Boebert says with a laugh.

Omar is Muslim. Boebert's remark astir Omar not wearing a backpack was an evident notation to her not carrying a termination bomb.

Reaction to the video was swift. Omar called connected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to “take due action” due to the fact that “normalizing this bigotry not lone endangers my beingness but the lives of each Muslims. Anti-Muslim bigotry has nary spot successful Congress.”

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House Democratic enactment besides issued a associated connection condemning “Boebert’s repeated, ongoing and targeted Islamophobic comments and actions,” portion calling connected McCarthy "to yet instrumentality existent enactment to face racism.”

Yet McCarthy, who is successful enactment to go House talker if Republicans retake the bulk adjacent year, has proven reluctant to constabulary members of his caucus whose views are often intimately aligned with the party's base.

Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill said the talker had thing caller to adhd Monday and pointed to the connection issued by Democratic leaders past week calling connected McCarthy to act.

Boebert tweeted Friday that “I apologize to anyone successful the Muslim assemblage I offended with my remark astir Rep. Omar," adding that "there are plentifulness of argumentation differences to absorption connected without this unnecessary distraction.”

It's not Boebert's archetypal brushwood with contention — nor Omar's. Since Boebert's predetermination to Congress successful 2020, she has leaned successful to provocative broadsides that delight the party's base. Omar has drawn her absorption successful particular. She has antecedently called Omar and others “full clip propagandists" for "state sponsored terrorism,” and “politicians with termination belts strapped their body.”

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In May, she tweeted that Omar was “a full-time propagandist for Hamas.” She has besides called Omar and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib "evil” portion besides referring to them arsenic the “jihad squad.” Tlaib, similar Omar, is Muslim.

Omar excessively has drawn scrutiny for her comments, often successful notation to Israel, immoderate of which person been blasted arsenic anti-Semitic.

In 2019, she suggested that Israel’s supporters are pushing U.S. lawmakers to instrumentality a pledge of “allegiance to a overseas country.” She was besides pressured to apologized “unequivocally” for suggesting that legislature enactment for Israel was “all astir the Benjamins baby,” a longstanding trope astir Jews buying influence.

House Democratic enactment straight rebuked Omar implicit the remarks.

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