The next is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Dec. 7, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Welcome to this system.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Thanks, Margaret.
REP. OMAR: Now we have so much to get to with you, however I need to choose up on the place the Treasury Secretary simply left off. He alleged that individuals who have been tied to you or your marketing campaign have been concerned on this broad, brazen scheme to tear off the Minnesota state welfare system. Do you need to reply to that? Have you learnt what he’s referring to?
REP. OMAR: I actually do not, and I do not suppose the Secretary himself understands what he is referring to. We clearly had individuals who have been in a position to donate to our marketing campaign that have been concerned. We despatched that cash again a pair years in the past. And really, I used to be one of many first members of Congress to ship a letter to the Secretary of Ag asking them to look into what I believed was a reprehensible fraud that was occurring inside the program.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So this was only for our viewers. The Biden-era Justice Division known as it the most important COVID fraud scheme within the nation, and this was pocketing COVID-era welfare funds, greater than a billion {dollars} in taxpayer cash that was stolen. It was fairly, fairly stunning. Of the 87 folks charged, all however eight are of Somali descent, and that has added to the highlight being put particularly in your group. Why do you suppose this fraud was allowed to get so widespread?
REP. OMAR: I need to say, you understand, this additionally has an influence on Somalis, as a result of we’re additionally taxpayers in Minnesota. We additionally might have benefited from this system and the cash that was stolen. And so it has been actually irritating for folks to not acknowledge the truth that we’re, you understand, we’re additionally as Minnesotans as taxpayers, actually upset and offended concerning the fraud that has occurred.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So do you suppose, although, that there was a failure by the Democratic state authorities to police itself? This can be a brazen fraudulent exercise right here.
REP. OMAR: Yeah, and that’s what I alluded to in my letter that I had despatched to the Secretary of Ag was to see the place issues have been going mistaken. How can this sum of money disappear fraudulently with out there being alarms being set off? And it’s one thing that you understand, we now have to proceed to analyze. Now we have to proceed to ask these questions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: As a result of, as you understand, one of many preliminary defenses by the group on the coronary heart of the fraud, Feeding Our Future, was to assert the probe was on account of racism. Do you suppose that this was all about negligence, or that it was like political worry of alienating the Somali group?
REP. OMAR: So it’s important to keep in mind that the lady who led this system is a Caucasian lady, and that was her means of constructing certain that this could proceed to occur by utilizing no matter rhetoric that was obtainable to her. We do know that when the cash was stopped, they did sue the AG. Lawyer Common Keith Ellison defended the division in that lawsuit. It was a decide that mentioned it ought to contin- that cash ought to proceed to exit. And so this wasn’t one thing that individuals weren’t taking a look at. There was all the time these, these alarms, and we are going to proceed to know the place issues might need gone mistaken as these investigations proceed, and as these fraudsters are prosecuted and despatched to jail.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Effectively, it should have influence in your group, as a result of we have already heard that the pinnacle of Medicare and Medicaid say they will have a brand new coverage that applies to Minnesota. You heard the Treasury Secretary say they’re investigating. However there’s one other thread right here, as a result of Home Republicans and the Treasury Secretary simply now talked a couple of hyperlink to terrorism, a potential hyperlink. He mentioned they’re simply now starting to look into it. How assured are you that that is a false declare?
REP. OMAR: I am fairly assured in the meanwhile, as a result of there are individuals who have been prosecuted and who’ve been sentenced. If there was a linkage in that, the cash that that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that could be a failure of the FBI and our courtroom system in not figuring that out and principally charging them with- with these, with these fees. And so I do know that for a few years, this form of like alarm that there’s cash being transferred by means of the airport in baggage and going to terrorism has all- that accusation has all the time existed. There has by no means been right here and there in these accusations. But when that’s the case, if cash from U.S. tax {dollars} is being despatched to assist with terrorism in Somalia, we need to know and we wish these folks prosecuted, and we need to ensure that that does not ever occur once more.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So there are 80,000 folks of Somali descent in your state, however the President has been very targeted not simply on them, however on you. On this extraordinary cupboard assembly, he mentioned, Somalis, quote, “come from hell.” “They complain and so they do nothing however bitch.” Take a pay attention.
[SOUND ON TAPE BEGINS]
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: These are folks that do nothing however complain. They complain, and from the place they got here from, they have nothing.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: …We do not need them in our nation. Allow them to return to the place they got here from and repair it.”
[SOUND ON TAPE ENDS]
MARGARET BRENNAN: That knocking is vehement settlement from his Cupboard members there. I simply marvel what the response is in your district to have that from the best workplace within the land.
REP. OMAR: It is disgusting. It is utterly disgusting. These are People that he’s calling rubbish. And we really feel like there’s an unhealthy obsession that he has on the Somali group, and an unhealthy and creepy obsession that he has with me. I believe it’s also actually essential for us to keep in mind that this type of hateful rhetoric and this degree of dehumanizing can result in harmful actions by individuals who hearken to the president.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And 95% of the Somalis in your state are U.S. residents.
REP. OMAR: Sure.
MARAGARET BRENNAN: Only for readability there. However the president has restricted all immigration processing, together with asylum claims from Somalis already on U.S. soil, together with 18 different international locations. ICE reviews it has rounded up about 19 folks, and so they put out press releases with the pictures of about 5 of them that they are saying are the worst of the worst is that everything of the crackdown up to now?
REP. OMAR: Yeah, to this point we all know of the folks that they’ve picked up in Minnesota, about 5 of them are Somalis, and from what I’ve learn and from the folks that I’ve spoken to, all of them had already had orders of elimination. So these usually are not people who find themselves undocumented, however individuals who have dedicated crimes and who ought to have already been despatched in another country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I need to ask you one thing else that the architect of the President’s immigration coverage, Stephen Miller, mentioned. On Thanksgiving day he posted, “No magic transformation happens when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the situations. and terrors, of their damaged homelands.”
What do you make of this argument of failure to assimilate and form of ruining America. How do you perceive this?
REP. OMAR: I imply, after I take into consideration Stephen Miller and his white supremist rhetoric, it reminds me–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –That is the way you hear it–
REP. OMAR: Sure, it jogs my memory of the way in which the Nazis described Jewish folks in Germany. And you understand, as we all know, there have been many immigrants who’ve tried to return to the USA who’ve turned again, you understand, one in every of them being Jewish immigrants. We know how that individuals have been described who have been coming from Eire, Irish immigrants. We know how by which folks have been described again then, when there have been Italian immigrants. And to me, you understand, we’re, we’re, sure, after all, ethnically Somali, we’re on this nation as People, we’re residents, we’re a productive a part of this nation, and we are going to proceed to be.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congresswoman Omar, thanks in your time right now. And we’ll be proper again with much more Face the Nation. Stick with us.
