Ilhan Omar Cusses Out Right-Wing Reporter Over Question on Wrongfully Deported Man
Rep. Ilhan Omar had no patience for a right-wing journalist who asked about her colleagues' trips to El Salvador Thursday.
The Democratic congresswoman cussed out Myles Morell from conservative news website The Daily Caller on Thursday after he asked her about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported by the Trump administration.
'Do you think more of your Democratic colleagues should be traveling to El Salvador to advocate on behalf of Abrego Garcia?' Morell asked Omar, referencing recent trips by liberal lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Yassamin Ansari, to visit the deportee.
'I think you should f–k off,' Omar responded as she and her team walked past the reporter.
'I'm sorry, what, congresswoman? Who should?' Morell responded.
'You,' the lawmaker doubled down.
In a video posted on X following the tense interaction, Morell said he had been spending the day asking House Democrats if they would encourage their colleagues to fly to El Salvador to advocate for Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S.
'I just found that very unprofessional, very rude, especially when I was just a journalist who's trying to do his job,' he said of Omar's response.
'Always a pleasure to see you,' Morell wrote in another post, tagging Omar's account.
The clip sparked a firestorm in MAGAworld.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace reposted The Daily Caller's video, writing: 'Waiting for Dem outrage over her choice of words.'
Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk said Omar 'has no class, no gratitude to America, and no honor,' adding that she was 'truly a disgrace to the U.S. Congress.'
MAGA commentator Tomi Lahren similarly said Omar was a 'nasty woman.'
'Reminder: Democrats say Donald Trump has lowered the tone of political rhetoric,' conservative pundit Piers Morgan said.
Despite the outrage, Omar offered no apologies.
'I said what I said,' she wrote in response to a post by MAGA influencer Libs of TikTok. 'You and all your miserable trolls can f*ck off.'
The Minnesota representative has had several heated clashes with conservative reporters in the past.
In March, she pushed Fox News reporter Johnny Belisario out of an elevator while he was asking her why she refused to stand during President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress.
'You need to move,' Omar told the reporter as she closed the elevator on him. 'Have a good day. I need to go to a meeting.'
Last year, she shushed another Fox News reporter who asked her about comments she made suggesting that there were 'pro-genocide' Jews.
In October 2023, Omar called a Fox Business reporter a 'crazy lady' as she evaded questions about an Israel-Palestine ceasefire. Later that month, she yelled in exasperation in response to another question about the issue.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Vox
15 minutes ago
- Vox
The Supreme Court's blessedly narrow decision about religion in the workplace, explained
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. In 2018, shortly before Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation shifted the Supreme Court drastically to the right, Democratic Justice Elena Kagan laid out her strategy to keep her Court from becoming too ideological or too partisan. The secret, she said, is to take 'big questions and make them small.' Since then, Kagan and her Democratic colleagues have had mixed success persuading their colleagues to decide cases narrowly when they could hand right-wing litigants a sweeping victory. The Court has largely transformed its approach to religion, for example, though it does occasionally hand down religion cases that end less with a bang than with a whimper. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission will likely be remembered as such a whimper. The opinion is unanimous, and it is authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of Kagan's few fellow Democratic justices. The case could have ended in a sweeping decision that severely undermined the rights of many workers. Instead, Sotomayor's opinion focuses on a very narrow distinction between how Wisconsin law treats some religious groups as compared to others. Catholic Charities involved a Wisconsin law that exempts some nonprofits from paying unemployment taxes. This exemption applies only to employers that operate 'primarily for religious purposes.' Wisconsin's state supreme court determined that a 'religious purpose' includes activities like holding worship services or providing religious education, but it does not include secular services like feeding the poor, even if those secular activities are motivated by religion. Related The Supreme Court is leading a Christian conservative revolution The upshot is that Catholic Charities — an organization that is run by the Catholic Church but focuses primarily on secular charitable work — was not exempt from paying unemployment taxes. Sotomayor's decision reverses the state supreme court, so Catholic Charities will now receive an exemption. The Court largely avoids a fight over when businesses with a religious identity can ignore the law In a previous era, the Court was very cautious about permitting religious organizations to claim exemptions, in part because doing so would give some businesses 'an advantage over their competitors.' Such exemptions could also potentially permit employers with a religious identity to exploit their workers. In Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985), for example, the Court considered a religious cult that operated a wide range of commercial businesses. These businesses paid no cash salaries or wages, although they did claim to give workers food, clothing, and shelter. The cult sought an exemption from minimum wage laws and similar workplace protections, but the Court disagreed. A too-broad decision in Catholic Charities could have potentially undermined decisions like Alamo Foundation, by giving some employers a broad right to ignore laws protecting their workers. But Sotomayor's opinion reads like it was crafted to hand Catholic Charities the narrowest possible victory. Under the state supreme court's decision in Catholic Charities, Sotomayor writes, a church-run nonprofit that does entirely secular charity work may not receive an exemption from paying unemployment taxes. But a virtually identical nonprofit that does the exact same work but also engages in 'proselytization' or limits its services to members of the same faith would receive an exemption. This distinction, Sotomayor says, violates the Supreme Court's long-standing rule that the government 'may not 'officially prefe[r]' one religious denomination over another.' The state may potentially require all charities to pay unemployment taxes. But it cannot treat religious charities that seek to convert people, or that limit their services to members of one faith, differently from religious charities that do not do this. In Sotomayor's words, an organization's 'eligibility for the exemption ultimately turns on inherently religious choices (namely, whether to proselytize or serve only co-religionists).' The crux of Sotomayor's opinion is that the decision whether to try to convert people, or whether to serve non-Catholics, is an inherently 'theological' choice. And states cannot treat different religious organizations differently because of their theological choices. Unfortunately, Sotomayor's opinion, which is a brief 15 pages, does not really define the term 'theological.' So it is likely that future courts will have to wrestle with whether other laws that treat some organizations differently do so because of theological differences or for some other reason. It's not hard to imagine a cult like the one in Alamo Foundation claiming that it has a theological objection to paying the minimum wage. But the Catholic Charities opinion also does not explicitly undermine decisions like Alamo Foundation. Nor does it embrace a more sweeping approach proposed by dissenting justices in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who argued that nonprofits whose 'motivations are religious' may claim an exemption — regardless of what that nonprofit actually does.


Newsweek
17 minutes ago
- Newsweek
AOC Scrambles New York City Mayoral Race With Endorsement
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made her endorsement in New York City's mayoral race as more progressive Democrats in the city work to consolidate support against front-running former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Why It Matters Ocasio-Cortez remains popular with younger, more progressive voters in New York City, so her support could convince some of those voters to head to the polls for the June 24 primary. Whoever prevails in the primary would become the favorite to win in November, as the city remains a Democratic stronghold. What To Know The progressive congresswoman announced in The New York Times that she is ranking Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who has polled second behind Cuomo and emerged as a favorite among many left-leaning voters, first in the Democratic primary. New York City uses ranked choice voting in their local elections. She said she will be ranking New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams second, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander third, former Comptroller Scott Stringer fourth and state Senator Zellnor Myrie fifth in her endorsement, the Times reported. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York speaks during a rally in Denver on March 21, 2025. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York speaks during a rally in Denver on March 21, 2025. JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images "Assemblymember Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack," Ocasio-Cortez told the newspaper. "In the final stretch of the race, we need to get very real about that." Newsweek reached out to the Mamdani and Cuomo campaigns, as well as Ocasio-Cortez's office, for comment via email. Cuomo has established a polling lead over other candidates and is viewed as the leader with less than a month until the primary, as progressives seek to rally behind other candidates to prevent him from becoming the party's nominee because of his more moderate policy positions. A recent Emerson College poll found Cuomo and Mamdani as the top two Democratic candidates. On the first round of voting, 35 percent of respondents said they'd vote for Cuomo, while 23 percent would back Mamdani. By the final round, however, Cuomo had support from 54 percent of respondents, while Mamdani had 46 percent. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from May 23-26 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 after a report from Attorney General Letitia James' office alleged that he sexually harassed multiple female employees and created a toxic working environment, allegations Cuomo has denied. In May, he accused the Trump administration of "election interference" after The New York Times reported it launched a criminal investigation into whether Cuomo lied to Congress about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mamdani has engaged more progressive voters with a more left-leaning platform, emphasizing issues like a rent freeze to deal with rising rent and housing in the city and the establishment of a network of city-owned grocery stores intended to combat rising grocery costs for New Yorkers. Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement comes just one day after the Democratic candidates faced off in their first debate, during which each sought to portray themselves as the strongest to lead the city of more than 8 million people. "I am Donald Trump's worst nightmare, as a progressive Muslim immigrant who actually fights for the things that I believe in and the difference between myself and Andrew Cuomo," Mamdani said during the debate. What People Are Saying New York City mayoral candidate and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a once-in-a-generation leader who has led the fight for working people in Congress. In 2018, she shocked the world and transformed our politics. On June 24, with @AOC's support and this movement behind us, we will do the same." Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times: "Even if the entire left coalesced around any one candidate, an ideological coalition is still insufficient for us to win. We have to have a true working-class coalition." What Happens Next The New York City mayoral primary is set for Tuesday June 24. The winner will face off against a Republican, as well as Mayor Eric Adams, who is seeking reelection as an independent, in November.


Fox News
18 minutes ago
- Fox News
Ex-Biden adviser calls Jean-Pierre ‘kinda dumb,' deletes tweet, says she's not a ‘genius-level Black woman'
As criticism mounts from within Biden's world against former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her new book, one ex-aide lambasted the now-Independent ombudswoman as "kinda dumb" — a tweet he deleted but later stood by. Timothy Wu, now a Columbia Law professor, was former President Joe Biden's "architect" of antitrust policy whose faculty bio claims he also coined the progressive term "net neutrality" in 2002. In a now-deleted tweet, Wu wrote: "from a [White House] staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb." "[She had n]o interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy," Wu added in the trashed tweet. The X account "I work with my word" replied to the original tweet, calling it "pretty racist," and the tweet was later deleted, but the reply remained. Below the reply, Wu added a new line of commentary, saying the Biden White House was "full of genius-level Black women. [Jean-Pierre] was not one of them." In response to another X user asking Wu whether Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt understands executive policy, the professor said a good ombudsperson will "meet with policy staff and try and understand what the administration is doing and why." Fox News Digital reached out to Wu via his Columbia faculty office, where he has taught since 2006. The former Biden adviser was also a Democratic primary candidate for New York's lieutenant governorship in 2014, and also worked in the Obama administration and at the Federal Trade Commission. Jean-Pierre announced Wednesday that she left the Democratic Party and has become an Independent while revealing her upcoming book: "Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines." She was mocked and criticized by several people in Biden's orbit besides Wu, including one who said, "I wouldn't ignore what Karine has to say, but it's not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings." "At noon on that day [that Biden left office], I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically," Jean-Pierre said of her new Independent streak.