The Dictatorship
Rep. Ilhan Omar: Trump is weaponizing fear against me and other immigrants
ByRep. Ilhan Omar
The newest phase of militarized racial terror in Donald Trump’s America is playing out on the streets of Minnesota.
Masked and armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are stopping people of color and demanding identification. As media reports have documentedthey have seized U.S. citizens. When concerned bystanders have tried to intervene, they have been met with pepper spray and threats. Terrified families do not know where their loved ones have been taken, by whom or why.
Operation “Metro Surge” shows how far ICE is willing to go to terrorize the Black, Brown and immigrant communities of Minnesota. It is cruelty masquerading as policy.
This is not a scene from the darkest chapters of American history. It’s Minnesota in 2025. Though for many immigrant communities, such persecution might sound painfully familiar. Japanese Americans endured it during World War II. Muslim Americans lived through it after Sept. 11, 2001. Jewish immigrants felt it decades ago when the U.S. closed its borders to refugees fleeing genocide.
Earlier periods in U.S. history were also harsh, with Italian immigrants derided as criminals and Irish immigrants branded job stealers. Last year, Trump hurled unconscionable stereotypes and false claims about Haitian immigrants, epithets designed to demonize a nationality.
The details change yet the pattern remains the same: Weaponize fear and target entire communities. Trump is widening the net when he slurs Somalis as “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.” Although he has criticized me as “garbage” and denigrated others of Somali heritagethe ultimate goal is to cast suspicion on anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant. Today in Trump’s America, that means anyone who is not white.
The purpose of Trump’s immigration agenda: to make Black and Brown Americans, permanent residents, documented workers, international students, tourists and refugees all feel like they do not belong here, regardless of what the law says.
Any pretense of legitimate law enforcement evaporated the moment the Trump administration rushed to strip Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole from thousands of people, rendering them undocumented so federal agents could arrest and detain them. The government has unilaterally halted asylum processing, abandoning people fleeing persecution. The president stopped renewing work permits and parole for people born in what he has repeatedly demeaned as “garbage” and “shithole” countries.
Operation “Metro Surge” is showing how far ICE is willing to go to terrorize the Black, Brown and immigrant communities of Minnesota. It is cruelty masquerading as policy.
Over the past week, ICE agents attacked a Somali man on his lunch break even as customers shouted that he was a U.S. citizen. Agents ignored them. They hauled him to a federal facility, then told him to walk home through snow after admitting they had no cause to detain him.
Another egregious example was the abduction of a Somali woman from downtown Minneapolis who was mocked for wearing a hijab and held for 24 hours until her family proved, yet again, that a U.S. passport is not enough to shield a U.S. citizen who happens to be a Black Muslim woman.
This is not “immigration enforcement.” It is collective punishment. It is state-sanctioned racial profiling used as a tool of political intimidation.
Immigrants and communities of color are not the only people suffering the consequences. White neighbors who understand that the Constitution protects everyone, who simply attempt to lawfully observe events, are being brutalized as well. One 55-year-old white Minnesotan stepped outside to see why armed agents had swarmed her block. She was shoved to the ground, arrested, shackled and held for four hours before being released without charge.
The message is unmistakable: Dissent will be punished. Fear and cruelty are the point.
Here is what Trump and his enablers fail to understand: Immigrants love this country deeply. We love democracy in the way that only those who have lived without it can.
Here is what Trump and his enablers fail to understand: Immigrants love this country deeply. We love democracy in the way that only those who have lived without it can. We cherish the rule of law, the promise of due process and the idea that our diversity is a strength, not a threat.
My grandfather understood this. He brought me to Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor caucuses as a teenager because he knew that U.S. citizenship carries a profound responsibility: to participate, to protect our neighbors and to build communities where every person can thrive. He instilled in me the fact that America is strongest when we stand up for one another.
No matter how hard this president tries to weaponize fear, he cannot extinguish our love for this country. He cannot crush the American dream we have fought to claim. And he cannot erase the contributions and courage of millions who believe in an America that is multiracial, democratic and free.
Somali Minnesotans will not be intimidated into silence. Trump will never be able to steal the American dream from us because so many of us have fought like hell to have a chance at it. We will not surrender the beautiful promise of a nation that belongs to all of us.
Rep. Ilhan Omar
Rep. Ilhan Omar represents Minnesota’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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