Andrew Harnik/AP
- Donald Trump has endorsed controversial Colorado lawmaker Lauren Boebert for re-election.
- Trump’s endorsement comes less than 24 hours after the House passed a bill to combat Islamophobia.
- The bill was a tacit rebuke of Boebert’s Islamophobic comments, where she insinuated that Rep. Ilhan Omar is a terrorist.
Former President Donald Trump has given a glowing endorsement of controversial Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert.
Trump’s endorsement of Boebert was announced on Twitter via his spokeswoman Liz Harrington.
“Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has done a fantastic job in her first term representing Colorado’s Third District. She is a fearless leader, a defender of the America First Agenda, and a fighter against the Loser RINOs and Radical Democrats,” Trump wrote in his endorsement.
“She will continue to be tough on Crime, strong on Borders, and always protect our under-siege Second Amendment. Lauren has my Complete and Total Endorsement for her reelection!” Trump added.
Boebert responded to Trump’s endorsement, tweeting: “I am beyond humbled & honored to receive the endorsement of President Donald J. Trump! I will ALWAYS stand with the America First agenda & President Trump! Join our campaign today by chipping in $20.22.”
Trump’s endorsement of Boebert for the upcoming mid-term elections came a day after the House narrowly passed a bill to combat Islamophobia. The “Combating International Islamophobia Act,” which passed on Tuesday, was an implicit rebuke of Boebert for Islamophobic comments she made about the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ilhan Omar.
In November, a video of Boebert making Islamophobic comments about Omar went viral. In the video, Boebert described running into Omar in an elevator and referred to her as part of a “Jihad Squad,” insinuating that Omar is a terrorist.
Omar denied the elevator incident ever happened and called Boebert a “buffoon,” saying the far-right Colorado congresswoman “looks down when she sees me at the Capitol.”
“This whole story is made up. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout,” Omar continued. “Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”
Boebert later apologized on Twitter, saying: “I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar,” she wrote. “I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly.”
Omar said later, however, that her phone call with Boebert had been “unproductive” and that Boebert had “doubled down on her rhetoric.”
The controversy swirling around Boebert led Democratic caucus chairs and progressive Democratic House members to call for Boebert to face consequences for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and be stripped of her committee assignments. However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has signaled that House Republicans would not take action against Boebert.
Trump has, for his part, also spread baseless conspiracy theories that Omar married her brother and abandoned Somalia when she fled as a child.
Omar has called the rumors “absurd and offensive” and released a lengthy statement and timeline of her marriage history in 2016.
Boebert is currently facing Republican Marina Zimmerman in the primary for her seat. Zimmerman tweeted in November that she wanted to “take out the trash” when calling on voters to support her over Boebert. Zimmerman describes herself on her campaign website as a “hard-working, get-it-done Conservative,” appealing to voters who want to “restore sensibility, civility, and ethics in Congress.”
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