The next is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Dec. 7, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Welcome to this system.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Thanks, Margaret.
REP. OMAR: Now we have quite a bit to get to with you, however I wish to choose up on the place the Treasury Secretary simply left off. He alleged that individuals who have been tied to you or your marketing campaign have been concerned on this broad, brazen scheme to tear off the Minnesota state welfare system. Do you wish to reply to that? Are you aware what he’s referring to?
REP. OMAR: I actually do not, and I do not suppose the Secretary himself understands what he is referring to. We clearly had individuals who have been capable of donate to our marketing campaign that have been concerned. We despatched that cash again a pair years in the past. And truly, I used to be one of many first members of Congress to ship a letter to the Secretary of Ag asking them to look into what I believed was a reprehensible fraud that was occurring throughout the program.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So this was only for our viewers. The Biden-era Justice Division known as it the most important COVID fraud scheme within the nation, and this was pocketing COVID-era welfare funds, greater than a billion {dollars} in taxpayer cash that was stolen. It was fairly, fairly surprising. Of the 87 folks charged, all however eight are of Somali descent, and that has added to the highlight being put particularly in your neighborhood. Why do you suppose this fraud was allowed to get so widespread?
REP. OMAR: I wish to say, you realize, this additionally has an affect on Somalis, as a result of we’re additionally taxpayers in Minnesota. We additionally might have benefited from this system and the cash that was stolen. And so it has been actually irritating for folks to not acknowledge the truth that we’re, you realize, we’re additionally as Minnesotans as taxpayers, actually upset and indignant concerning the fraud that has occurred.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So do you suppose, although, that there was a failure by the Democratic state authorities to police itself? This can be a brazen fraudulent exercise right here.
REP. OMAR: Yeah, and that’s what I alluded to in my letter that I had despatched to the Secretary of Ag was to see the place issues have been going fallacious. How can this sum of money disappear fraudulently with out there being alarms being set off? And it’s one thing that you realize, now we have to proceed to analyze. Now we have to proceed to ask these questions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: As a result of, as you realize, one of many preliminary defenses by the group on the coronary heart of the fraud, Feeding Our Future, was to say the probe was as a result of racism. Do you suppose that this was all about negligence, or that it was like political concern of alienating the Somali neighborhood?
REP. OMAR: So it’s a must to keep in mind that the lady who led this system is a Caucasian lady, and that was her approach of creating certain that this might proceed to occur by utilizing no matter rhetoric that was obtainable to her. We do know that when the cash was stopped, they did sue the AG. Legal professional Basic Keith Ellison defended the division in that lawsuit. It was a choose that stated it ought to contin- that cash ought to proceed to exit. And so this wasn’t one thing that folks weren’t . There was at all times these, these alarms, and we are going to proceed to grasp the place issues might need gone fallacious as these investigations proceed, and as these fraudsters are prosecuted and despatched to jail.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Nicely, it should have affect on your neighborhood, as a result of we have already heard that the top of Medicare and Medicaid say they’ll have a brand new coverage that applies to Minnesota. You heard the Treasury Secretary say they’re investigating. However there’s one other thread right here, as a result of Home Republicans and the Treasury Secretary simply now talked a few hyperlink to terrorism, a attainable hyperlink. He stated they’re simply now starting to look into it. How assured are you that that is a false declare?
REP. OMAR: I am fairly assured in the intervening time, as a result of there are individuals who have been prosecuted and who’ve been sentenced. If there was a linkage in that, the cash that that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that could be a failure of the FBI and our courtroom system in not figuring that out and mainly charging them with- with these, with these costs. And so I do know that for a few years, this type of like alarm that there’s cash being transferred by the airport in luggage and going to terrorism has all- that accusation has at all times existed. There has by no means been right here and there in these accusations. But when that’s the case, if cash from U.S. tax {dollars} is being despatched to assist with terrorism in Somalia, we wish to know and we wish these folks prosecuted, and we wish to make it possible for that does not ever occur once more.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So there are 80,000 folks of Somali descent in your state, however the President has been very centered not simply on them, however on you. On this extraordinary cupboard assembly, he stated, Somalis, quote, “come from hell.” “They complain they usually do nothing however bitch.” Take a pay attention.
[SOUND ON TAPE BEGINS]
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: These are those who do nothing however complain. They complain, and from the place they got here from, they have nothing.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: …We do not need them in our nation. Allow them to return to the place they got here from and repair it.”
[SOUND ON TAPE ENDS]
MARGARET BRENNAN: That knocking is vehement settlement from his Cupboard members there. I simply surprise what the response is in your district to have that from the very best workplace within the land.
REP. OMAR: It is disgusting. It is utterly disgusting. These are People that he’s calling rubbish. And we really feel like there’s an unhealthy obsession that he has on the Somali neighborhood, and an unhealthy and creepy obsession that he has with me. I feel it is usually actually vital for us to keep in mind that this type of hateful rhetoric and this stage of dehumanizing can result in harmful actions by individuals who take heed to the president.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And 95% of the Somalis in your state are U.S. residents.
REP. OMAR: Sure.
MARAGARET BRENNAN: Only for readability there. However the president has restricted all immigration processing, together with asylum claims from Somalis already on U.S. soil, together with 18 different nations. ICE reviews it has rounded up about 19 folks, they usually put out press releases with the photographs of about 5 of them that they are saying are the worst of the worst is that the whole lot of the crackdown to this point?
REP. OMAR: Yeah, to this point we all know of the those who they’ve picked up in Minnesota, about 5 of them are Somalis, and from what I’ve learn and from the those who I’ve spoken to, all of them had already had orders of elimination. So these usually are not people who find themselves undocumented, however individuals who have dedicated crimes and who ought to have already been despatched overseas.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I wish to ask you one thing else that the architect of the President’s immigration coverage, Stephen Miller, stated. On Thanksgiving day he posted, “No magic transformation happens when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the situations. and terrors, of their damaged homelands.”
What do you make of this argument of failure to assimilate and type of ruining America. How do you perceive this?
REP. OMAR: I imply, after I take into consideration Stephen Miller and his white supremist rhetoric, it reminds me–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –That is the way you hear it–
REP. OMAR: Sure, it jogs my memory of the best way the Nazis described Jewish folks in Germany. And you realize, as we all know, there have been many immigrants who’ve tried to come back to america who’ve turned again, you realize, certainly one of them being Jewish immigrants. We understand how that folks have been described who have been coming from Eire, Irish immigrants. We understand how through which folks have been described again then, when there have been Italian immigrants. And to me, you realize, we’re, we’re, sure, in fact, ethnically Somali, we’re on this nation as People, we’re residents, we’re a productive a part of this nation, and we are going to proceed to be.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congresswoman Omar, thanks on your time right now. And we’ll be proper again with much more Face the Nation. Stick with us.
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