Rep. Omar demands apology for Islamophobic comments from Joy Reid
The host of MSNBC's 'The ReidOut' compared President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric to 'how Muslims act.'
Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is demanding an apology from MSNBC’s Joy Reid after the host of “The ReidOut” compared President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric to “how Muslims act.”
“When leaders, let’s say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence, including on their own bodies, in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy, we in the U.S. media describe that as they are ‘radicalizing’ those people,” Reid said during Monday’s show.
She was talking about the president’s refusal to decry the actions of 17-year-old accused Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, who was captured in a photograph in the front row of a Trump campaign rally.
Read More: Trump defends Kenosha protest shooter: ‘He probably would have been killed’
“Particularly when they’re radicalizing young people,” she continued. “That’s how we talk about how Muslims act. When you see what Donald Trump is doing, is that any different from what we describe as radicalizing people?”
Rep. Omar tweeted that “this kind of casual Islamophobia is hurtful and dangerous.”
“We deserve better,” the Democrat opined, “and an apology for the painful moment for so many Muslims around our country should be forthcoming.”
Among Reid’s guests was Newsweek Editor-at-Large Naveed Jamali, who said he does not believe there is a difference between Trump’s comments allegedly in support of violence committed by his followers and those of a similar nature made by Muslim extremists.
Jamali told Newsweek that conservative outlets had been covering the story, but not reaching out to him for his opinion. “We live in a country that is full of double standards. Why is it not a fair question to ask why, when it comes to extremism, we don’t point out that there’s a double standard between brown extremists and white extremists, in terms of how law enforcement approaches them?”
He suggested to the magazine that Reid’s comments were taken out of context.
Still, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, retweeting her colleague Omar’s sentiments, tweeted “Words matter and these words feed into the harmful anti-Muslim rhetoric & actions that we continue to see in this country. It is even more painful to hear it from someone I admire.” She also demanded an apology.
For her part, Reid said on “The ReidOut” Tuesday that “there’s been some thoughtful commentary, but also some willful distortion of the points I tried to make yesterday.” She stated the issue would be discussed in-depth on her show Wednesday.
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