Ilhan Omar stays mum on 9/11 comments, complains of double standard on ‘Colbert’

Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar stayed mum on her comments about 9/11 during an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” as she complained of being held to a double standard by her critics.

Colbert didn’t ask about her recent reference to the 2001 terror attack as “some people did something,” but he did reference the Minnesota Democrat’s controversial statements about Israel — and about the criticism she’s faced from conservatives and some Democrats.

She responded by saying that her critics do not receive the same amount of scrutiny she does.

“This kind of double standard, it really is quite offensive,” she told Colbert.

“It is very much embedded in a lot of our culture these days, where you will have people come after minorities for things that they say, that they might have insinuated,” she added.

The congresswoman, one of the first two Muslim women elected to the House, then turned the conversation to a “Fox & Friends” host who said in response to her 9/11 comment, “You have to wonder if she’s an American first.”

“No one goes after people like the folks on ‘Fox & Friends’ that actually say those words. It’s not about insinuation, right?” she said. “They actually said that I might not be an American. My loyalties might not be to this country. But I get called out. They don’t.”

The Fox host, Brian Kilmeade, had tweeted before the interview that he didn’t mean to question whether Omar was American, but was “questioning how any American, let alone a United States Congresswoman, could downplay the 9/11 attacks.”