Ilhan Omar says Trump is ‘losing his memory’ after he confuses her with Rashida Tlaib

A progressive congresswoman mocked Donald Trump for “losing his memory” after he apparently confused her with another Muslim member of Congress during his visit to her home state on Saturday.

Trump and his new running mate JD Vance held their first joint campaign rally of the 2024 season in Minnesota on Saturday, a state the former president lost to Democrats in both 2020 and 2016. During Trump’s speech in St Cloud, he attacked his new presumptive opponent Kamala Harris, endorsed by Joe Biden after the president announced his decision to step aside last Sunday, and also swiped at a local target: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a progressive and member of the “Squad” who has been outspoken in her opposition to Maga Republicanism.

But in his remarks, Trump wrongly referred to Omar as the congresswoman who “went to a speech when I was first running” and “started screaming”.

“This lunatic was in the audience,” he said, after naming Omar. “She started screaming…It’s the same crazy person I watch every night. She’s nuts.”

Omar, however, was not the soon-to-be-congresswoman who disrupted one of Trump’s speeches in 2016. That was Rashida Tlaib, Omar’s fellow “Squad” member and a representative for neighboring Michigan’s 12th district. Tlaib was revealed in 2019 to have been one of the protesters who interrupted Trump’s speech to the Detroit Economic Club. At the time, she was working as a public interest attorney.

In video tweeted by an Australian columnist, Tlaib can be seen being led away by security as the president speaks with a triumphant look on her face. As she nears the person filming on a camera phone, Tlaib shouts, “you guys are crazy!” at the crowd, to which one person calls her an “animal” in response.

Omar responded to video of the former president’s remarks in a tweet on Sunday.

“Trump telling dangerous anti-Muslim lies is nothing new. But I have never attended one of his speeches. He is lying again or losing his memory,” wrote the Minnesota congresswoman. “Trump should step aside as his criminal convictions and continued legal troubles have clearly taken a toll on the 78 year old conman.”

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign confirmed that the ex-president had mistaken one congresswoman for the other.

"It's common to mistake the two deranged and radical individuals who both want open borders just like failed Border Czar Kamala Harris, are mentally unstable, and promote an anti-America agenda that seeks to shred the Constitution to pieces so they can burn it just like they do the American flag,” said Steven Cheung.

Trump has been accused of confusing his various political rivals with one another in the past. Most famously, he did so with Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi in January, during the height of the GOP primary, when casting blame over the insufficient law enforcement response on January 6. Trump has maintained in public comments that he “purposely interposed” Haley’s name for Pelosi’s in that instance, though without coherently explaining why he’d do that.

His visit to Minnesota on Saturday comes as his campaign is attempting to steal back momentum from Harris, whose own bid for the presidency has taken off like a rocket since President Biden announced his decision to step aside last Sunday afternoon. In the short time period she has been at the top of the Democratic ticket, her campaign says it has raised more than $200m in direct donations and signed up thousands of volunteers.

Trump is coming off a largely successful four-day Republican convention in Milwaukee, where he unveiled Senator JD Vance as his running mate. In the days following, Vance’s past comments about unmarried women and childless Americans have forced the Trump campaign back on the defensive.