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Ilhan Omar: “Trump Has an Unhealthy and Creepy Obsession With Me”

The Minnesota representative tells The Nation that her targeting is “a deliberate attempt to distract the American people from the failures of this administration.”

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) poses for a portrait in her office on Capitol Hill on Wednesday December 10, 2025.

In the predawn hours of October 12, Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents raided the home of US Representative Ilhan Omar, DFL-Minnesota. The raid was reportedly part of a criminal fraud investigation that was focused on decades-old immigration and citizenship paperwork that was filed by Omar’s father when she was a child. Omar, an outspoken progressive, is a refugee from Somalia who came to the United States at age 12. She has been the target of attacks by Trump, his Republican allies, and right-wing media for the better part of a decade. She denied any wrongdoing and decried the raid as “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”

That sentiment was echoed by former president Barack Obama, along with many other prominent Democrats and defenders of civil liberties. For his part, Trump claimed he had nothing to do with the raid. Yet, on the same day that it occurred, the president ripped into Omar as “totally crooked personally” and “a terrible person.” He also endorsed Minnesota Republican US Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, who is mounting a high-stakes challenge to DFL candidate Peggy Flanagan in Tuesday’s midterm election. With Republican prospects fading in Senate battleground states such as North Carolina and Georgia, Tafoya’s bid was on Trump’s radar to such an extent that, just hours after the raid on Omar’s home, he was telling Minnesotans, “You have to vote for Michele Tafoya, who’s a very respected person.”

The Nation recently asked Omar to discuss the raid and the politics surrounding it. Here’s what she had to say.

John Nichols: There was an immediate show of support from your constituents after the raid. You can’t be too worried about your own reelection prospects. But do you think that the president and his allies are trying to stir up anti-immigrant and anti-Somali sentiment in the broader context of the midterms?

Ilhan Omar: Absolutely. This is political, and it’s a deliberate attempt to distract the American people from the failures of this administration. Republicans don’t want to talk about the soaring cost of living, the Epstein files, the war in Iran, Trump’s shady diesel deal with Russia, or a healthcare system that is spiraling out of control. So instead, Trump sends DHS to raid my home. This is what authoritarianism looks like: weaponizing the federal government against anyone he sees as an opponent, scapegoating immigrant........

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