By: Fern Sidman – Jewish Voice News

In a combustible escalation of his long-running feud with Rep. Ilhan Omar, President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of blistering criticism at the Minnesota Democrat during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, disparaging her as “garbage” and sharply denouncing Somali immigration to the United States. The remarks mark one of the president’s most caustic public attacks on Omar since she entered Congress in 2019.

According to a report on Wednesday at World Israel News, Trump’s comments came in response to a reporter’s question about rising tensions between the White House and Minnesota Democratic leadership, particularly concerning public safety and integration issues among Somali communities in the state. Trump seized on the opportunity to assail Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as “grossly incompetent,” faulting him for what he portrayed as a total breakdown of law-and-order under the weight of refugee resettlement.

“Walz is a grossly incompetent man. There’s something wrong with him,” Trump declared, according to the report at World Israel News. “When you look at what he’s done with Somalia, which is barely a country. They have no anything. They just run around killing each other.” His remarks, oscillating between foreign policy derision and domestic grievance, laid the foundation for a sweeping denunciation of the state’s most recognizable political figure — Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Omar, a Somali-born refugee who was granted asylum in the late 1990s and became a U.S. citizen in 2000, has long been a lightning rod for right-wing criticism. Her outspoken condemnations of Israeli policy and a series of controversies involving antisemitic tropes have drawn rebuke from members of both parties. Trump, who has repeatedly cited Omar as emblematic of what he calls the “radical left,” reiterated those themes during the meeting.

“For years, I’ve watched her complain about our Constitution,” he said, according to the World Israel News report, “How she’s being treated badly. Our Constitution — the United States of America — is a bad place, she says. It hates everybody, hates Jewish people, hates everybody.”

Trump then delivered one of his most incendiary attacks to date. “Ilhan Omar is garbage,” he said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” He went on to argue that Somali immigration has harmed the country. “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he added, casting Somali newcomers as unproductive and ungrateful. “These aren’t people who work… These are people that do nothing but complain. When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

The exchange illustrated the durability of the political rivalry between the president and Omar, whose clashes have shaped online discourse, congressional hearings, and national debates about identity, loyalty, and belonging.

Hours after Trump’s tirade, Omar issued a terse but pointed response on X, accusing the president of nursing an unhealthy fixation on her. “I hope he gets the help he desperately needs,” she wrote, dismissing Trump’s remarks as unhinged rather than substantive. Her post, which quickly went viral, underscored the deep personal animosity that has come to define the relationship between the two figures.

Omar is no stranger to incendiary rhetoric herself. Her tenure in Congress has been marred by controversies surrounding comments that Jewish leaders and watchdogs have described as antisemitic — controversies that have repeatedly been highlighted by World Israel News, which has chronicled her statements about Israel, American Jews, and U.S. foreign policy with relentless scrutiny.

Trump’s allies argue that his criticisms are grounded in genuine ideological disagreement — not personal animus. They contend that Omar’s positions on Israel, national security, and immigration place her at odds with the mainstream American consensus. But critics warn that Trump’s escalation risks inflaming racial tensions and stigmatizing immigrant communities.

Trump’s hostility toward Omar dates back to her earliest days in Congress. In 2019, he dramatically urged her and several other progressive lawmakers to “go back” to their home countries — comments that echoed through the 2020 and 2024 election cycles and became rallying cries at Trump rallies across the country.

Omar has continued to accuse Trump of xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia — themes she repeated on social media following Tuesday’s remarks. Her supporters argue that Trump’s criticisms are not political but personal and racially charged, aimed at delegitimizing women of color who challenge American foreign-policy orthodoxy.

Yet as World Israel News has repeatedly documented, Trump’s critiques often center on Omar’s record of anti-Israel statements and her frequent clashes with Jewish communal organizations. Her controversial remarks about pro-Israel advocacy groups, her opposition to key U.S.-Israel policies, and her voting record on anti-antisemitism measures have positioned her as a formidable and polarizing figure in Washington.

Tuesday’s exchange also illuminated Trump’s strategy for 2026 and 2028, with Minnesota emerging as a symbolic battleground in the national immigration debate. Trump’s remarks on Walz and the Somali community were framed as critiques of state governance, law enforcement, and the broader Democratic agenda — themes World Israel News has emphasized in its coverage of rising crime rates, refugee resettlement patterns, and political polarization in the Midwest.

Minnesota houses one of the largest Somali diasporas outside East Africa. While the community has produced success stories in business, activism, and civic life, it has also faced negative attention from law-enforcement agencies over isolated cases of radicalization and gang violence. Trump has consistently used such cases to argue for stricter immigration controls.

A recurring thread in Trump’s critique — and in World Israel News’s coverage — is Omar’s record on Israel and antisemitism. Since 2019, she has been censured or condemned multiple times for remarks such as suggesting that U.S. support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins,” equating Israeli democracy with extremist groups and accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.”

Jewish leaders across the ideological spectrum have said her statements contribute to an increasingly hostile climate, both on college campuses and in city streets. Trump has repeatedly invoked these controversies to portray Omar as fundamentally opposed to American democratic values and the safety of Jewish citizens.

Trump’s comments call attention to a larger, intensifying political fight over immigration, national identity, and antisemitism — themes that the World Israel News report has identified as central to American politics after the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre and its global fallout.

The president’s rhetoric is likely to sharpen further as the 2026 midterm cycle approaches and Omar seeks re-election in a district that remains firmly Democratic but increasingly polarized.

If Tuesday’s Cabinet-room broadside is any indication, the feud between Trump and Omar will continue to serve as a flashpoint for debates over immigration, free speech, antisemitism, and America’s role in global conflicts — issues that now lie at the heart of the national conversation.