Trump: Omar “a Terrible Person”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Dec. 3, 2025) — In the wake of a burgeoning Minneapolis scandal wherein scores of “Somalians” reportedly obtained social-service funds in the “billions of dollars” over a number of years through fraud, during a Tuesday cabinet meeting President Trump said he “doesn’t want them in our country.”

“They contribute nothing,” Trump said. “…I don’t want ’em in our country; I’ll be honest with you…I can say it about other countries, too.”

“Our country’s at a tipping point…we could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking garbage into our country,” he said.

As on several past occasions, including during his first term, Trump quickly pivoted to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN5), calling her “garbage” and “a terrible person.” “Her friends are garbage…these are people that do nothing but complain, and for where they came from, they got nothing…when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but [break in recording]…we don’t want ’em in our country. Let ’em go back to where they came from and fix it.”

Since returning to office in January, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) resolved to rid the country of criminal illegal aliens from dozens of foreign countries who entered the U.S. with no vetting during the Biden years. According to a White House report from April, 32,809 illegals, a majority of whom were suspected or convicted criminals, had been arrested, and 139,000 individuals had been deported.

What is Happening in Minnesota?

On November 19, City Journal investigative reporters Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe wrote in what would prove to be a groundbreaking story:

Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.

In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

…Most of the large-scale fraud rings, according to two former FBI officials who spoke with City Journal, have been perpetrated by members of the Somali community.

Further, Rufo and Thorpe reported, individuals closely associated with Omar and other Somali political figures are strong supporters of the programs alleged to have been bilked by members of the enclave.

“According to multiple law-enforcement sources, Minnesota’s Somali community has sent untold millions through a network of ‘hawalas,’ informal clan-based money-traders, that have wound up in the coffers of Al-Shabaab,” a Somalian terror group, they reported. Three law-enforcement sources were quoted as having confirmed the existence of “hawalas” and ties between Somalis in the U.S. with terrorist groups overseas.

In May 2018, Scott W. Johnson, a St. Paul-based attorney, Claremont Institute fellow, longtime writer at Powerline blog and City Journal columnist, revealed that “millions of taxpayer dollars, and possibly much more, had been stolen through a massive scam of Minnesota’s social-services sector, specifically through fraudulent daycare claims. To make matters worse, the money appears to have wound up in areas of Somalia controlled by al-Shabab, the Islamic jihadist group responsible for numerous terrorist outrages.”

During Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Trump confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has opened an investigation into the reports of fraud allegedly committed by the Minneapolis Somali community.

Another Type of Fraud?

Johnson’s articles at City Journal date back a decade and include two specifically about Omar, including questions he posed regarding her first two marriages. At the time Johnson reported Omar to have had two concurrent unions, a claim also made by The Washington Examiner.

Omar’s first “marriage” to Ahmed Hirsi was reportedly only a religious ceremony and not officially recorded until they legally married in 2018.

At the time campaigning for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives, Omar “…has made her personal background an integral part of her campaign,” Johnson wrote on September 9, 2016. “But neither the candidate nor the reporters who covered her have shown much interest in exploring one aspect of her personal story that recently came to public attention: the fact that she is not legally married to the man she advertises as the husband and the father of her three children. In fact, she is legally married to another man—who may be her brother. A posting on the SomaliSpot discussion board alleged that Omar had married the man touted as her husband in 2002 before marrying her brother for fraudulent purposes in 2009. The post, which seems to have been written by someone from Minneapolis’s Somali community, was quickly deleted. By the time it came to my attention, the post was only available via a Google cache (now also deleted). If the story is true, however, it suggests that Omar had engaged in some kind of dishonest activity in connection with her marriage to her brother (which by itself would be illegal).

“I originally checked out the SomaliSpot story online through the Minnesota Official Marriage System,” Johnson continued. “Inputting Omar’s name, I found that the two marriages cited in the discussion board post checked out as indicated. The site reflected Omar’s 2002 marriage to her advertised husband, Ahmed Aden (later Ahmed Hirsi), and her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (identified in the SomaliSpot post as Omar’s brother). A few days after the primary, I submitted written questions to representatives of the Omar campaign, citing the SomaliSpot post, and asking whether Omar’s second marriage had been entered into with her brother for dishonest purposes. That same afternoon, I received a message from Omar’s press contact indicating that the campaign would get back to me later that day. I didn’t hear back from campaign officials directly, but I did receive a response from Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl. It provided no answer to my question, and implied that the question itself evidenced bigotry against Omar and her candidacy for public office.”

He then reproduced a letter he received from Brandl implying his question was part of “a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy” and one of a number of “negative forces.” Additional questions he sent to the attorney received no response, he said.

Aided by the work of Alpha News investigative reporter Preya Samsundar, Johnson revealed, “Using social media as a primary source, Samsundar has found information suggesting that Elmi, the man Omar married in Minnesota in 2009, is indeed her brother. Omar’s own Instagram photos from the summer of 2015 place her in London with relatives, and with a man later identified as Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. Soon after her marital history became an issue, however, Omar closed her Instagram account to the public. When the account became public again, Samsundar found that the original photo collage of Omar and Elmi was no longer included. Samsundar also discovered that accounts once connected to Elmi have disappeared since the controversy began. Even LinkedIn pages and Elmi’s professional portfolio pages have gone missing. New accounts for Elmi have appeared under a different name, and without his identifying photo.”

State Rep: Omar “a Fraud”

On October 7, 2019, Minnesota State Rep. Steve Drazkowski, who is now a state senator, wrote in a press release:

St. Paul – On Friday, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar filed for divorce from her husband, Ahmed Hirsi. In 2017, Rep. Omar filed for divorce from her first husband, Ahmed Elmi. In 2018, Rep. Omar legally married Ahmed Hirsi. Now in 2019, Rep. Omar is filing for divorce from Mr. Hirsi. Representative Steve Drazkowski reacted to the most recent news, saying, “This is the most recent development in an attempt by Rep. Omar to subvert the truth regarding her multiple violations of the law which include perjury and tax fraud.”

Rep. Drazkowski continued, “This story isn’t about the personal life of a politician. This story is about a politician who uses her relationships to cover up her misdeeds and disregard for the law. Congresswoman Omar knows that the truth reveals too much about her wrongdoings. As such, you can always expect Rep. Omar’s words and the truth to be 180^o apart.”

Rep. Drazkowski has consistently called out the media of the Twin Cities for their refusal to follow the facts, and ask basic questions, regarding Congresswoman Omar.

Rep. Drazkowski said, “It’s time for the mainstream media to get serious. Enough with the softball interviews and glittering profiles. Rep. Omar always uses the excuse, ‘it’s personal’ as a diversion to hide the facts about her life, which reveal her to be a fraud. If Congresswoman Omar does not tell the truth, then the media have a responsibility to find the truth. Congresswoman Omar only married Mr. Hirsi to cover up the fact that she married her brother, Mr. Elmi. In addition to all of this, Rep. Omar paid $250,000 to her new boyfriend, Tim Mynett, out of her campaign account. This entire situation is nothing more than wholesale corruption.”

The prior year, Drazkowski had filed a complaint with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board culminating in a finding that Omar misused campaign funds for personal use and ordered to reimburse her campaign “committee” $3,469.23.

In 2020, Omar married Mynett, a high-profile Democrat consultant, whose wife filed for divorce the year before, citing infidelity. Mynett’s company, E Street Group, was paid for consulting by Omar’s campaign “for services including digital advertising, fundraising consulting and mail production and postage,” according to Minnesota Reformer.

“Omar cuts financial ties with consulting firm co-owned by her husband after months of scrutiny,” the November 2020 article is titled.

E Street co-owner, Will Hailer, was employed in the office of current Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), writer Ricardo Lopez further reported.

Will It Continue?

On November 24, Minnesota Fourth Judicial District Judge Sarah West overturned a unanimous “guilty” verdict for Abdifatah Yusuf and his wife, Lul Ahmed, who last year were charged with seven counts associated with embezzling $7.2 million in taxpayer funds paid through Minnesota’s Medicaid program.

While the jury dismissed a racketeering charge, the remaining six counts resulted in convictions.

In her opinion, West conceded “fraud” had taken place at Yusuf’s’s business but that the state had failed “to actually connect the dots, even through clear inference from circumstantial evidence, that Mr. Yusuf knowingly assisted in the fraud.”

KARE 11 reported Ellison‘s office would appeal the ruling since it contradicted the decision reached by the jury. Newsweek wrote that a statement it received from Ellison’s office confirmed it, though this writer could find nothing on his website pertaining to the case.

Of Which Nation is Omar a Citizen?

In previous posts and public statements, Trump has alleged Omar has engaged in fraudulent activity, though apparently confusing her alleged marriage to her brother with her United States “citizenship” when it was Elmi who likely benefited at the time via his attendance at North Dakota State University and alleged taxpayer-funded financial aid.

Nevertheless, Trump has suggested Omar is “in the U.S. illegally.”

Minnesota’s Fourth Judicial District is where in May 2022, then-DFL primary challenger AJ Kern filed a lawsuit demanding Omar release proof of her naturalization and therefore her ability to seek re-election to her seat in Congress. Kern’s lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by Judge Bridget Ann Sullivan, who wrote in her opinion that Congress alone can determine that body’s service qualifications.

Omar claims she naturalized in 2000 at age 17 after her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, who reportedly passed away in 2020, allegedly became a U.S. citizen. However, after filing a FOIA request with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Kern received documentation indicating the agency holds no records of his naturalization.

Kern’s discovery followed her posting of a video in which she explained that Omar could not have naturalized in the year 2000 had she been born on October 4, 1981, as Omar had originally claimed. Within days of the video’s publication, Omar requested her former state legislative webpage and congressional page be updated to reflect her birth year as 1982.

Do Minnesotans Care?

According to public reporting, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is expected to send “as many as 100” agents into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to carry out “immigration enforcement.”

In response, the City of Minneapolis wrote:

The City of Minneapolis is closely monitoring credible media reports that the Trump administration will target Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities beginning this week. Mayor Jacob Frey was joined by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, Ward 6 Council Member Jamal Osman, Police Chief Brian O’Hara and other city leaders to respond to these reports and address community members directly.

You can watch the City’s full press conference on YouTube.

“Minneapolis is proud to be home to the largest Somali community in the country,” said Mayor Jacob Frey. “They are our neighbors, our friends, and our family – and they are welcome in our city. Nothing Donald Trump does will ever change that.”

The City of Minneapolis has the most vibrant Somali-American community in the nation. The City is proud of this community and the many achievements of people who have immigrated from Somalia and now call Minneapolis home. The City stands with our immigrant neighbors and we want to reaffirm that the City of Minneapolis does not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on civil immigration enforcement operations.

Mayor Jacob Frey, who was re-elected last month, stressed in a press conference Tuesday that Somalis are “loved.”

Following accusations from Congress that Gov. Tim Walz was aware of the misuse of taxpayer funds and refused to act, Walz said he “welcomes” a federal investigation.