MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar

Interview

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HAYES:  Republicans are now on day two of their latest sustained round of bad faith attacks
against Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.  This time it`s for expressing the personal meaning she derives from her ancestors` land in what is now Israel being used to create a safe haven for Jews  after the horrors of the holocaust.  That sentiment has been twisted in truly odious ways from an accusation of anti-Semitism by the Republican National Committee Chair Ranna Romney McDaniel to  absolutely vile remarks from Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney suggesting that Tlaib was trying to delegitimize Israel.
 
But among Tlaib`s supporters is one of her most stalwart defenders, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.  Omar and Tlaib are the only two Muslim-American women in congress.  And have consistently had each other`s backs as they have each endured a series of attacks.
 
Today, Congresswoman Omar, along with her Jewish colleague,  Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, wrote an op-ed calling for building alliances between the members of the Muslim and Jewish faiths and for an end to bigotry.
 
And Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is here with me now.
 
Congresswoman, I want to talk about your op-ed, but first I want to ask how you, given the
experience you`ve had in the sort of center of firestorms, how you are interpreting what is happening with respect to your colleague`s comments?
 
REP. ILHAN OMAR, (D) MINNESOTA:  Hi, Chris.  It`s really good to be here with you.  You know, I tell my sister, Rashida Tlaib that her and I have the strength to endure any of the mischaracterization or efforts to distort and vilify our message.
 
And I think we are seeing what happens when people really see these attacks for what they are.  It is designed to silence, sideline, and sort of almost eliminate public voice of Muslims from the public
discourse. 
 
And so I`m really excited that we have an opportunity to build alliances and push back and fight this attempt to marginalize our community`s voice.
 
HAYES:  You know, you have this op-ed with Jan Schakowsky today, talking about sort of this sort of shared interests of Jews and Muslims and sort of fighting bigotry and white nationalism and white nationalist violence.  And I wonder what your experience has been, because obviously there have been, I think, there are some folks who have come after you in bad faith, but there are some who were offended in good faith by things that you said or tweeted about allegiance to Israel or a tweet about it all about the Benjamins, vis-a-vis money, and there are folks who consider themselves progressives or liberals or Jews who were offended and are skeptical maybe about where you were coming from.
 
What have you learned?  And what do you say to them as you seek to sort of build this alliance?
 
OMAR:  I mean, the one thing that Jan and I realized was that when you see something wrong, that you have to use your influence and your voice to speak out against it.  And what we have noticed is that there is a threat.  Our communities are being terrorized by white supremacy.  We`ve seen the attacks on synagogues.  We`ve seen the linkage that they have to people who seek to terrorize mosques.  We notice that there is people on the right wing who are fueling that hate.  Their message is being used to fuel the sort of violence against both of our communities because of our faiths.
 
And it is time for us to make sure that we don`t allow for them to use any misunderstanding there might be to divide us, that we collectively work together against the collective hate that is coming from the right wing and white supremacy.
 
HAYES:  When the president tweeted out a video a few weeks ago, it was a video of you, comments you made before CAIR wrenched, again, I think similar to this sort of wildly out of context and juxtaposed with some of the most horrific images in recent American memory, which is the destruction of the Twin Towers, what was the effect of that on you personally, on your life?  Did that materially create danger for you?
 
OMAR:  I was speaking about the erosion of our civil liberties as Muslims in this country, and
our inability really to exist as individuals.  And you can see really what happens when someone like the president tweets something like that.  It`s not only an attack on myself, but it becomes an attack on all Muslims, and it becomes an attack on women of color, it becomes an attack on immigrants and refugees, because that message was really being used to sort of vilify everyone who shared an identity with me to other them to say that you don`t belong.
 
And then I think this is what we speak about in our op-ed, this is what I have really used my platform to speak about.  It is really important for us to recognize that we are -- we must be united in our diversity, that we can`t allow people to pin us against one another.  We have to recognize that this country is one that is built for all of us, that as much of a citizen as I am is what Jan is, is what Rashida
is, and is what most of, you know, our colleagues and our community members are.
 
If we allow for people to tell us who is in and who is out, then we all get to lose.  So that`s really the important message.
 
HAYES:  A final question for you.  I mean, you`re someone, you`re a freshman member of
congress.  You represent a district in Minnesota.  You have been the target of a lot of attacks.  You sort of, I think, elevated by certain folks in your political opposition who view you as a useful rhetorical cudgel.  What do you, Congresswoman Omar, want to be known for?  If you get to write your own
story about what people know you for, what do you want to be known for?
 
OMAR:  So when I am in the district, what people know me as is this fierce fighter for their
progressive values, someone who understands that we can`t only fight for individual progress.  We have to fight for collective progress.  They know that I am out here fighting to free them from the shackles of student debt, that I`m out here trying to make sure that every single person has an opportunity to be housed, that there is no mother or father going to sleep crying because they don`t know where the next
meal is going to come to feed their families, and everybody knows that I am a fighter for a more just and sustainable society, and that`s what people already know me as. 
 
I think everything else that you might hear in the headlines that feeds into a particular narrative that people want to fuel to silence my voice, and to minimize the kind of work that I want to do in driving for a more just world is not something that the people that sent me and entrusted their votes to send me to Washington to represent them know me as.  And I`m quite content with that in knowing that  they`re happy that I`m representing them and fighting for them every single day.
 
HAYES:  All rig ht, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, thank you so much for making the time.
 
OMAR:  Thank you so much for having me.
 
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