Lauren Boebert Apologizes for “Unnecessary Distraction” of Her Bigoted Comments About Ilhan Omar

Boebert is sorry. Sort of.

Tom Williams/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Footage of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) making a racist comment about her colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) surfaced this week. And Boebert is very sorry. Sort of.

In a video shared on social media by Patriot Takes, a left-wing organization that posts unflattering videos of Trumpy political figures, Boebert tells a crowd the (dubious) story of what she calls a “jihad squad moment.” In this fib constructed to appeal to voters (I guess?), Boebert says she and Omar were sharing an elevator in the Capitol when a police officer ran toward them. Her bigoted punchline goes: “I look to my left, and there she is, Ilhan Omar. I said, ‘Well she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’ ”

The crowd laughs and cheers.

On Thursday, Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress, responded—saying the anecdote was fake and calling the Colorado representative a “buffoon.”

“Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized,” Omar tweeted. “Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”

 

Democratic leadership addressed the situation in a statement on Friday: “Congresswoman Boebert’s repeated, ongoing and targeted Islamophobic comments and actions against another Member of Congress, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, are both deeply offensive and concerning,” it read. “We call on the Republican Leadership to address this priority with the Congresswoman and to finally take real action to confront racism.”

Boebert’s limp apology came via tweet.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate