Ilhan Omar Warns: Don’t Trust Trump

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Ilhan Omar Warns: Don’t Trust Trump

Representative Ilhan Omar expressed severe doubts about Donald Trump’s ability to navigate rising friction with Iran. This logic seems clear, given that if you can’t trust someone with a Sharpie and a weather map, you probably shouldn’t trust them with the most powerful—and certainly most well-funded—military in the world.

Omar told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday:

Congress has the constitutional right to declare war. The President doesn’t have it. The secretary of state doesn’t have it and Saudi Arabia certainly doesn’t have it. I think we need to make sure that the American people understand that this administration—that lies about weather maps or crowd sizes—cannot be trusted to give us the full information we need to make a decision whether we should go to war or not with Iran.

Omar references a number of Trump’s past peacocking fibs, which included falsely claiming Hurricane Dorian was headed for Alabama (and taking a Sharpie to a weather map to draw said route), and when White House press secretary-turned-Dancing with the Stars contestant Sean Spicer said in 2017 that Trump’s inauguration crowd was the largest ever, despite clear photographic evidence that contradicted that claim.

The most recent of Trump’s falsehoods is also the most dangerous. He has hinted numerous times on Twitter that Iran is responsible for the attacks on the Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, and such claims could be what tips a year of tension between Iran and the U.S. over the edge into military conflict.

“We are not in a position to think about another endless war and I really hope that my colleagues in Congress are going to pressure this administration to take a step back and figure out how we use diplomacy in de-escalating the situation,” Omar added.

Given past conservative criticism of the Minnesota Democrat, it’s improbable to think that Omar won’t face condemnation for her opinions, yet the hope that they will have some impact keeps her voicing them.

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