Tuesday November 5, 2019
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Monday it was "reprehensible" that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was receiving death threats.
“This is reprehensible,” Cruz tweeted. “Disagree with @IlhanMN on the merits, fine, but death threats to anyone are not a joke.”
The Texas senator spoke out after Chad Loder, the CEO and founder of tech company Habitu8, tweeted screenshots of death threats against Omar.
“Maybe Twitter has improved its policing of death threats since ABCNews and WaPo covered this 6 months ago?” Loder tweeted. “Oh.”
Omar tagged Twitter, calling the threats “unacceptable.”
The Minnesota Democrat has said she received an increase in death threats in April after President Trump shared a video that included images of the 9/11 attacks interlaced with some of her comments.
In July, a crowd at a Trump rally in North Carolina chanted, “Send her back” in reference to Omar after the president tweeted that she and other women of color who serve in the House — Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) — should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."
All four lawmakers are U.S. citizens. Omar came to the United States as a Somali refugee.