White House taunts Ilhan Omar with McDonald’s photo, suggests she can go back to Somalia
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The White House appeared to mock Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., with a post on X suggesting she should return to Somalia, her country of birth.
On Monday, the White House shared an image of President Donald Trump waving through a McDonald’s drive-thru window during a 2024 campaign stop, responding to a video clip of Omar saying she had no concerns about being deported.
“I have no worry, I don’t know how they’d take away my citizenship and like deport me,” Omar said in the clip, originally recorded for “The Dean Obeidallah Show” in October. “But I don’t even know like why that’s such a scary threat. Like I’m not the 8-year-old who escaped war anymore. I’m grown, my kids are grown. Like I could go live wherever I want.”
Neither Omar’s office nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
The photo shared by the White House was taken in October 2024 during a campaign event in Pennsylvania, where Trump briefly worked at a McDonald’s fry station.
Omar’s family fled Somalia during the civil war in 1991, initially relocating to a refugee camp in Kenya. They later received asylum in the United States, moving first to Arlington, Virginia, in 1995 and then to Minneapolis in 1997. Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
Trump has previously suggested that Omar should return to Somalia. In a November 1 post on Truth Social, he wrote, “She should go back!” alongside a video of Omar speaking Somali. In September, he also told reporters that Somalia had no interest in welcoming her back.
“You know, I met the head of Somalia, did you know that?” Trump said. “And I suggested that maybe he’d like to take her back. He said, ‘I don’t want her.’”
Omar dismissed Trump’s claims as false, questioning his credibility. “From denying Somalia had a president to making up a story, President Trump is a lying buffoon,” she said. “No one should take this embarrassing fool seriously.”
Trump’s clashes with Omar date back to his first administration. He has repeatedly criticized Omar and other progressive lawmakers known as “The Squad,” suggesting they should return to what he called “broken and crime-infested” countries.
Omar, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 after serving two years in Minnesota’s House, became the first Somali-American woman and one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. She has accused Trump of stoking white nationalism, saying in 2019 that he was “angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda.”
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