Writing: Rep. Ilhan Omar “faces the nation with Margaret Brennan,” Dec. 7, 2025

The following is the transcript of the interview with the rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat Of Minnesota, threatened to “face the nation with Margaret Brennan” on December 7, 2025.

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Margaret Brennan: And we’re joined now by Minnesota Democratic Congressman Ilhan Omar. Welcome to the program.

Rep. Ilhan Omar: Thank you, Margaret.

Rep. Omar: We have a lot to get from you, but I want to pick where the treasurer ended. He revealed that the people arrested for you or your campaign were involved in this broad, brazen plan to rip off the Minnesota State welfare system. Do you want to respond to that? Do you know where you are heading?

Rep. Omar: I really don’t think so, and I don’t think the secretary understands what he’s referring to. It is clear that we had people who were able to donate to our campaign who were involved. We sent that money after a few years ago. And in fact, I was one of the first members of Congress to send a letter to the Secretary of the AG asking them to look into what I thought was fraud going on within the program.

Margaret Brennan: So this was just for our audience. The Justice Department of the Biden-era called it the COVIAL CAURACTE Scheme in the country, and this was the social welfare money of the Covid-Era, more than a billion dollars in stolen tax money. It was fun, it was amazing. Of the 87 people billed, all but eight are of Somali Descent, and that adds to the local scene. Why do you think this hoax was allowed to spread so widely?

Rep. Omar: I want to say, you know, this also has an impact on Somalis, because we’re also Minnesota taxpayers. We also took advantage of this scheme with stolen money. And so it’s really frustrating for people not to acknowledge the fact that, you know, we Minnesotans as taxpayers, they’re really upset about the deception that’s happened.

Margaret Brennan: So do you think there is a failure of the police spokesperson’s own government? This is a clever hack job here.

Rep. Omar: Yes, and that’s what I heard in my letter that I sent to the Secretary of the AG was to see when things go wrong. How can this amount of money disappear fraudulently without alarms going off? And it’s something you know, we have to keep investigating. We must continue to ask these questions.

Margaret Brennan: Because, as you know, one of the first defenses is the organization at the heart of the deception, feeding our future, he had to demand that the investigation could be done on a racial basis. Do you think this was all about negligence, or was it more like a political fear of dividing the Somali community?

Rep. Omar: So you have to remember that the woman who led the show is a Caucasian woman, and that is her way of making sure that this will continue to happen by using whatever RHETORIC was available to her. We know that when the money was stopped, they sued the AG. Attorney General Keith Ellison defended the Department in that agreement. It was the judge who said it must continue – this money must continue to flow. And so this wasn’t something that people weren’t looking at. There were always those, those alarms, and we will continue to understand where things might go wrong as this investigation continues, and as these fraudsters are prosecuted and sent to prison.

Margaret Brennan: Yes, it will have an impact on your community, because we have heard that the head of Medicare and Medicaid says that they will have a new policy that applies in Minnesota. He heard the financial secretary of the Treasury say that they are investigating. But there’s another thread here, because House Republicans and the Treasury Secretary are now talking about a terrorism link, a possible link. He said they are now starting to look into it. How sure are you that that is a false claim?

Rep. Omar: I really hope so now, because there are people who have been prosecuted and convicted. If there was a connection to that, the money that they stole from the scam, then that’s a failure of the FBI and our court system for not finding that and basically charging them with these, and these costs. And so I know that for many years, this type is like an alarm that the money transferred from the airport to the ports and to terrorism is always there. It’s never here and there in those cases. But if that’s the case, if money from US tax dollars is being sent to help with terrorism in Somalia, we want to know and we want those people to be prosecuted, and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Margaret Brennan: So there are 80,000 people of Somali descent in your situation, but the President has been very focused on them, but on you. In this extraordinary meeting of the Cabinet, he said, the Somalis, he was quoted, “came from hell.” “They complain and do nothing but hit.” Take a listen.

[SOUND ON TAPE BEGINS]

President Donald Trump: These are people who do nothing but complain. They complain, and where they come from, they have nothing.

President Donald Trump: … We don’t want it in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. “

[SOUND ON TAPE ENDS]

Margaret Brennan: That knock is a vement deal from his Cabinet members there. I just wonder if the reaction is in your village to have that from the highest office in the land.

Rep. Omar: It’s disgusting. It’s absolutely disgusting. These are Americans who call trash. And we feel like there’s an unhealthy assumption that he has on the Somali community, and an unhealthy and delusional assumption that he has on me. I think it’s also important to remember that this kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of self-harm can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the President.

Margaret Brennan: And 95% of Somalis in your state are now US citizens.

Rep. Omar: Yes.

Margaret Brennan: just to be clear there. But the President limited all immigration processing, including asylum claims from Somalis already on US soil, as well as 18 other countries. ICE reports that it was joined by almost 19 people, and they issued a press release with five photos of which they say are the worst of the total crackdown so far?

Rep. Omar: Yes, so far we know of people that they took from Minnesota, about five of them are Somalis, and from what I’ve read and the people I’ve read, they’ve all released removal orders. So these are not undocumented people, but people who have committed crimes and should have been sent out of the country.

Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you one more thing that the architect of the President’s immigration policy, said Stephen Miller. On the day of thanksgiving he posted, “There is no magical change that occurs in the regions of the Magic States Cross Border. In the scales, the migrants and their descendants repeat the conditions.”

What is this argument about the failure to detect and filter corrupting America. How do you understand this?

Rep. Omar: I mean, when I think of Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of–

Margaret Brennan: – How You Feel–

Rep. Omar: Yes, it reminds me of how the Nazis described the Jewish people in Germany. And you know, as we know, there have been a lot of people from the diaspora who have tried to come to the United States who have come back, you know, some of them without Jewish immigration. We know how people are described who came from Ireland, Irish immigrants. We know how people were described at that time, when there were Italian immigrants. And to me, you know, we, yes, yes, yes, we are in this country as Americans, we are citizens, we are a productive part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be is a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be a part of this nation, and we will continue to be.

Margaret Brennan: Congress Omar, thank you for your time today. And we will go back a long way on the face of the nation. Stay with us.