Omar Attacked at Town Hall, Substance Under Probe (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar there attacked while speaking at a town hall event in Minneapolis Tuesday night. In the video, seconds after Omar calls on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to resign, a man approaches her, sprays an unknown liquid on her with a syringe.

[00:00:18] Speaker 2: Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment.

[00:00:34] Speaker 1: CNN's Sarah Seidner was at that town hall. She saw all this happen. Sarah, what did it look like from your perspective?

[00:00:43] Speaker 3: Look, there was a lot of fear initially. People couldn't figure out what happened. He was towards the very front of all of the rows of people who had come to the town hall, which, by the way, she has monthly. We are in North Minneapolis. She had it at the Urban League. And as soon as he sort of jumped up and came towards her, it was interesting to note that as he went around the side, he had what looked like a syringe in his hand, some sort of liquid he sprayed out of it. And you could immediately smell it. It smelled kind of like vinegar, a vinegary substance. We still don't know exactly what was in that syringe. An investigation we now know is underway. But after he did that, Ilhan Omar herself, the congresswoman, went for him. She cocked her arm back, and it looked like she was going to lunge toward him. But before she had a chance to do that, her own security detail jumping on him, taking him to the ground, eventually wrestling his arms behind his back and taking him out of the vicinity, so that he could be brought in by police. Ilhan Omar herself looked over. They were telling her her security detail. I watched them talking to her, saying, we need you to stop. We are concerned about what this is. We don't want you to continue. She says, no, I'm going to continue. I will not let anyone intimidate me. And she stood in front of the crowd that was still there, who clapped for her, as she continued talking about the situation here when it comes to immigration. But yes, I mean, there was a lot of concern, and there was fear among her staff about whether or not she was going to be OK.

[00:02:21] Speaker 1: And then right after that, she spoke exclusively with you, Sarah. What did she say?

[00:02:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, I just happened to pull my cell phone out after our photographer, Jerry Simonson, was focused on the person who was wrestled to the ground and being taken out. And I asked her simply if she was OK. And here's how she responded. Representative Omar, are you OK?

[00:02:44] Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to go figure if I am, but I feel OK. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are in elected office or not, to allow these people to intimidate us, to make us not fight for our constituents and for the country we love. And as I said, you know, I've survived war, and I'm definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think they can throw at me, because I'm built that way. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:03:17] Speaker 3: I'm built that way. Her last words there as she went to the back, where she eventually began getting checked by medical staff. But yeah, this was a moment that did freak everyone out in the room, considering that just like many other members of Congress, Ilhan Omar has gotten threats. She's gotten death threats. But her staff tells me this is the first time that she's ever faced any kind of attack inside her own town halls, which she has regularly, like I said, once a month here. And we are standing here in North Minneapolis, where her constituents came to listen to what she had to say. And she was very pointed about what she feels is going on in her own community, and very clear that she wants ICE out. She wants Kristi Noem out. And she wants ICE to leave this community, because she says it is just breaking her community apart.

[00:04:12] Speaker 4: There were some Republicans who were quick to condemn the attack. Mike Lawler called it unacceptable. Mark Alford said while he disagrees with Omar, quote, these disagreements should never result in assault. And Nancy Mace says she was deeply disturbed. One Republican who did not seem worried about it, President Trump. Speaking to ABC News, he suggested without evidence that the attack was somehow staged, saying, quote, I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed knowing her. The same president who just hours before had said this about Minneapolis.

[00:04:51] Speaker 5: We have Tom Holman there now. We put him in there. He's great. And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else. And we're going to de-escalate a little bit.

[00:05:00] Speaker 4: Joining me now in the group chat, Zach Wolf, CNN senior politics writer, Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator and Republican pollster, and Antoine Seawright, Democratic strategist. Antoine, can I actually start with you? I don't know if you heard in your group chats or people in Democratic circles started talking about this last night.

[00:05:17] Speaker 6: Well, I did. America's not like this because Donald Trump is the president. Donald Trump is the president because America's like this. And believe it or not, there's some sick, deranged people out there who are celebrating online when members of Congress are attacked, when they're threatened, particularly visible figures like Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others. And I think that we as Americans have to step back. But I also think leaders starting at the presidency level should always condemn these type things because it cannot be good for them and not good for me. When the president was under attack, Americans came together to condemn it. And so the president has to tone down the rhetoric because we've seen January 6th is a direct result. When his language goes out, people respond to it.

[00:06:02] Speaker 4: Yes, although I think the argument was the attack on him and Butler was a result of rhetoric against him, how people had talked about him. Hold on, I want to play for you something because Trump has, you know, of course, dismissed the attack on Omar. She's a longtime sort of, what's the word, villain, social media villain on the right. Here is what he had to say yesterday. And then I'm also going to take you back to 2019.

[00:06:29] Speaker 5: They have to show that they can love our country, they have to be proud. Not like Ilhan Omar. Ilhan Omar is garbage, she's garbage. Her friends are garbage.

[00:06:40] Speaker 7: Omar has a history of launching vicious anti-Semitic screeds. Stand for Trump, stand for Trump.

[00:06:52] Speaker 4: I feel like usually on a panel there's someone who says people love Trump for his punchy language. And are people, I think, is the public starting maybe a bit too sour as they see attack after attack and these sort of incidents on lawmakers?

[00:07:05] Speaker 8: I mean, I think in some ways it's a numbness rather than a cheering for it or a souring on it. It's just like, is this, this is just like the toxic soup in which we live now. I think it's horrible. I'm glad that some Republicans came out and condemned it. I wish all of them would. Just like I thought it was reprehensible that the internet fever swamps had cooked up the fact that there was some conspiracy theory when Donald Trump was shot in Butler. I think it's terrible that fever swamps and the president are cooking up conspiracy theories around this. I hope this man is investigated. I hope they throw the book at him. Because when we have a culture where people who run for public office and are in the public eye are under threats of violence, and this, again, did start with Trump.

[00:07:47] Speaker 4: But isn't that a moment precisely when Trump should not say something like, hey, she probably faked it? I mean, it's been hours. Like, not even. Yes. This brings me to the other thing, who they can feel like they can speak ill about and the limits of that. They came up against a hard limit with Alex Pretty, right, calling him a domestic terrorist after he died at the hands of ICE. Here is the president on Tuesday. You're going to hear a very different tone than what we heard from the administration over the weekend.

[00:08:18] Speaker 9: Do you agree with the assessment from some of your own officials that Alex Pretty is a domestic terrorist or an assassin?

[00:08:23] Speaker 5: Well, I haven't heard that, but certainly he shouldn't have been carrying a gun. But all of, hey, look, bottom line, everybody in this room, we view that as a very unfortunate incident. That's right. Everyone, unless you're a stupid person.

[00:08:36] Speaker 10: I mean, I think there are a lot of people who would like to see fewer people carry guns in the country. A lot of them are not Republican voters. So when he says that kind of thing, when you go after somebody who is legally carrying a gun, something that's allowed in this country under the Second Amendment, very controversially for a lot of people. Dutton rights groups have already been talking about this the last couple days. Yeah, you basically ripped the rug out from underneath your base.