Ilhan Omar blames Trump’s rhetoric for surge in death threats, including spray attack: 'So obsessed with me'

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Wednesday blamed President Donald Trump for an attack in which she was sprayed with a substance by a man during a news conference, saying the commander in chief was "obsessed" with her.

Speaking at the Karmel Mall in Minneapolis, Omar reiterated calls to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the day after 55-year-old Anthony James Kazmierczak allegedly attacked the congresswoman with an unknown chemical spray.

"I think my presence here should tell you that the fear and intimidation doesn't work on me," Omar told reporters and her supporters during a news conference. 

"What the facts have shown since I've gotten into elected office is that every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket."

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The progressive lawmaker said the attacks from Trump began almost immediately upon her taking office in 2019 during his first term in the White House. 

"I became a freshman who nobody should have actually known I existed because I wielded no power to having the most death threats of any member of Congress," she said. "To the point where I had to have six Capitol Police officers providing 24-hour detail to me and my family. And then Biden got elected, and for four years it almost plummeted. Then he came back into office, and he resumed his vitriol.

"And now my death threats are the highest of the members of Congress." 

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Trump has repeatedly criticized Omar and other progressive lawmakers over a number of their policy positions and their opposition to his agenda. 

Omar then recalled Tuesday's incident in which Kazmierczak used a syringe to squirt liquid on Omar after she called for the abolition of ICE and the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal agents conducting immigration enforcement operations. 

Kazmierczak was immediately tackled by security and remains jailed on a preliminary third-degree assault charge, authorities said. 

When asked about the attack on Omar, Trump suggested it may have been staged. 

"No. I don’t think about her," he reportedly told ABC News. "I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."

Omar said her alleged attacker was "upset that Trump's order to deport Somalis was not yielding enough deportations of Somalis."

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"I wouldn't be where I am at today, having to pay for security, having the government to think about providing me security if Donald Trump wasn't in office and if he wasn't so obsessed with me," she said. 

"It is ironic that just last night he was on stage moments before I was attacked talking about me, and then when asked about my attack, he said, 'I don't think about her.'"

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House.