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- Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was not present at the Capitol on January 6, shared on Thursday her account of the riots.
- She detailed the “ugly” and “violent” death threats she’s received since being elected in 2018.
- She urged her colleagues not to minimize violence and rhetoric.
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In an impassioned speech on the House Floor Thursday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan began to cry as she detailed her personal account observing the Capitol attack on January 6.
Through tears, Tlaib, who was not present at the Capitol building the day of the riots, began her remarks by discussing the first death threat she ever received, which she described as “serious.” On her first day of Congressional orientation after she was elected in 2018, she said the FBI took her aside and had to visit the man’s home.
“I didn’t even get sworn in yet, and someone wanted me dead for just existing,” Tlaib said.
She went on to say the threats to her life continued to come and became “uglier” and “more violent.” One, she said, celebrated the New Zealand massacre, in which a man killed 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch.
Another mentioned her son directly by name, she said.
“Each one paralyzed me each time,” Tlaib said as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez moved to comfort her. “So what happened on January 6th, all I could do was thank Allah that I wasn’t here.”
Tlaib said she felt overwhelming relief not to be present in the Capitol on the day a mob breached the building in a riot that left five people dead. Since the attack, experts have said the insurrection could have been far deadlier and that quick thinking to bring Congress members to safety most likely saved lives.
“If insurrectionists had been able to get their hands on a member of Congress, particularly a member of Congress that has been vilified by right-wing media … I think you could most definitely have had bloodshed because people were so riled up and fueled with conspiracy theories and hatred,” Devin Burghart, the executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a national watchdog group, told Insider last month.
Prior to Tlaib’s speech, Ocasio-Cortez denounced efforts to minimize the insurrection and her own account of it, and she issued a special order to call on other representatives to relay what they experienced.
Tlaib said she asked to share last because hers was such a personal story.
Following the insurrection, Tlaib said she and her team decided to “keep the death threats away.”
“We’d try to report them, document them, to keep them away from me because it just paralyzed me,” she said. “And all I wanted to do was come here and serve the people that raised me.”
She said her family members have begged her to get protection and urged her to get a gun.
“I have to tell you, the trauma from just being here existing as a Muslimah is so hard, but imagine my team,” she said as she described her diverse staff. “I worry every day for their lives because of this rhetoric. I never thought that they would feel unsafe here. “
She ended by asking her colleagues not to diminish the importance of what happened during the Capitol riots.
“Please, please take what happened on January 6 seriously. It will lead to more death, and we can do better,” Tlaib said. “We must do better.”
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