Rep. Ilhan Omar faced tough questions Wednesday as she appeared on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” struggling to clearly explain how alleged fraud tied to a Somali network in Minnesota grew “so out of control” amid a widening federal investigation.
According to Fox News, Tapper pressed the Minnesota Democrat for details after the Small Business Administration announced an investigation into a series of organizations accused of exploiting COVID-19 relief programs.
Omar responded with a winding explanation focused on what she described as a lack of safeguards in hastily assembled pandemic assistance efforts.
“I think what happened, um, is that, you know, when you have these, kind of new programs that are, um, designed to help people, you’re oftentimes relying on third parties to be able to facilitate,” Omar said. “And I just think that a lot of the COVID programs that were set up — they were set up so quickly that a lot of the guardrails did not get created.”
Following her answer, Tapper turned to comments made earlier in the day by President Donald Trump. Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump delivered a sharp criticism of Omar and the broader Somali community in Minnesota.
“These Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. They’ve taken billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters. “They have a representative, Ilhan Omar, who they say married her brother. She should be thrown the hell out of our country. And most of those people, they have destroyed Minnesota. She should not be — and her friend shouldn’t be allowed — frankly, they shouldn‘t even be allowed to be Congress people, okay? They shouldn’t even be allowed to be Congress people, because they don’t represent the interests of our country.”
After airing the clip, Tapper asked Omar for her reaction.
“I’m not shocked, because we know that the president oftentimes resorts to very bigoted, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist rhetoric when he is trying to scapegoat and deflect from the actual failures that he has himself,” Omar said. “We know that this administration has not fulfilled the majority of the promises that they’ve made, whether it is bringing costs down, whether it is the tariffs that are decimating businesses in the United States, whether it is the possible war crimes that his defense secretary is committing.”
Omar added that she believes immigrants and their families will remain part of the country despite political attacks.
“To me, it is important for us, one, to remind folks that we are Americans. We’re not going anywhere, and we will continue to be in this country. And two, that Minnesotans are resilient, and we will continue to thrive.”
The federal investigation intensified Tuesday, when the SBA revealed it is reviewing a network of Somali groups it says is connected to a major COVID fraud case that has already led to charges against dozens of defendants.
Critics have accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s administration of failing to monitor public funds during the pandemic properly.
“Numerous individuals and nonprofits indicted in the $1 billion Minnesota COVID fraud scandal, including Feeding Our Future, received SBA PPP loans in addition to other state and federal funding,” Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler announced on X. “I have ordered an investigation into the network of Somali organizations and executives implicated in these schemes.”
She continued, “Despite Governor Walz’s best efforts to obstruct, SBA continues to work to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable, full stop.”
An SBA spokesperson later confirmed the focus of the investigation, saying the agency is evaluating “all individuals and organizations indicted as part of the $1 billion Minnesota COVID fraud scheme to identify any that may have also fraudulently obtained PPP loans — evaluating their citizenship status, the legitimacy of their nonprofit work, and other requirements for eligibility.”
