President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan should be sent "back from where they came" after they shouted at him during his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night.
In a post on Truth Social, the president called the two congresswomen "Low IQ" and said they "should be institutionalized," describing them as having "the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick," when they shouted during his speech last night.
"When people can behave like that, and knowing that they are Crooked and Corrupt Politicians, so bad for our Country, we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible," Trump wrote. "They can only damage the United States of America, they can do nothing to help it."
Trump also included Robert De Niro in his criticism after the Academy Award-winning actor spoke critically of the president and his administration at a "State of the Swamp" counter-programming event hosted by Democrats in Washington last night.
In his social media post, Trump said Omar and Tlaib, "should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying — some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!"
Omar was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a child in the 1990s, while Tlaib was born in Michigan.
Spokespersons for Omar and De Niro did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Tlaib pointed to the congresswoman's recent post on X, which said, “Can’t take two Muslimas talking back and correcting him so now he is crashing out.”
Omar and Tlaib began shouting at the president last night during a section of his speech about curbing illegal immigration and a fraud investigation in Minnesota involving the Somali community.
After Trump said that Democrats should be "ashamed," Omar shouted back, “You should be ashamed!"
At another point, Tlaib yelled "Liar!"
Both lawmakers continued to heckle Trump, later shouting, "You have killed Americans!" an apparent reference to the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents in Minnesota last month.
In a post on X later Wednesday, Omar wrote, "I said what I said. I had to remind Trump that his administration was responsible for killing two of my constituents."
Democratic leaders at House Democrats' issues retreat in Virginia on Wednesday condemned Trump's post, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., calling it, "disgraceful."
"The xenophobic rhetoric of Donald Trump, you know, directed at two members of the House, Democratic caucus, of course, is sadly, not surprising, but it’s disgraceful, unpresidential, unpatriotic and UN American, but that’s Donald Trump, and that was on full display for the American people yesterday," Jeffries told NBC News.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, defended Omar and Tlaib, saying they are "in touch with the pulse of their communities."
"These are US citizens, members of Congress who are duly who are federally elected office holders. Where they come from is their districts, and they go back quite a bit to their districts. Those two members are as in touch with the pulse of their communities as any two members we have in the chamber," Aguilar told NBC News.
The president, whose anti-immigration rhetoric and hardline border policies have drawn criticism from Democrats and civil rights groups, has long attacked Omar and Minnesota's Somali community, of which the congresswoman is a member.
At a Pennsylvania rally in December, the president said Omar “does nothing but bitch” and rallied the crowd to chant: "Send her back."
During a Cabinet meeting in December, Trump referred to the progressive lawmaker as “garbage” and said Somalis should “go back to where they came from." In the same meeting, the president called Omar a "terrible" and "incompetent" person.
The president began his attacks on Omar, Tlaib and other progressive female lawmakers in 2019, during his first term, drawing sharp criticisms from the lawmakers and other Democrats, who said the comments were racist.
At the time, he wrote in a series of posts on X, then known as Twitter, that it was, “so interesting to see ‘progressive’ Democrat congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on earth, how our government is to be run."
He added, "Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime[-]infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done."
Late last month, the congresswoman was attacked at a town hall event in Minnesota and later blamed the president's harsh rhetoric towards her and other Somalis for the incident.
“What the facts have shown since I’ve gotten into elected office is that every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,” Omar said at a news conference the day after the attack.
“I do believe that the facts of the situation are that I wouldn’t be where I am at today, having to pay for security, having the government to think about providing me security, if Donald Trump wasn’t in office,” she added at the time.
