A man rushed at Rep. Ilhan Omar during a town hall in Minneapolis Tuesday night and sprayed her with an unknown substance from a syringe—and President Trump’s response was to suggest she staged the whole thing.

“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” Trump told ABC News when asked about the attack.

“She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”

WHAT’S GOING ON: Omar had just called for ICE to be abolished and for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign when 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak jumped from his front-row seat, began ranting, and lunged at the congresswoman with a syringe full of amber liquid. Security tackled him. Someone in the audience said the substance had a foul odor. Omar was uninjured and—because she’s built different—refused to leave.

“We will continue,” she said. “This f—ing a–hole is not getting away with this.”

OF COURSE: The attack came just hours after Trump mocked Omar and Somalia at an Iowa rally, saying immigrants must “show that they can love our country; they have to be proud, not like Ilhan Omar.” A day earlier, he announced the Justice Department and Congress were “looking at” her. When a reporter pressed him about whether he’d seen footage of the attack, Trump said he hoped he wouldn’t “have to bother with it.” (SUCH LEADERSHIP.)

WHY IT MATTERS: This is the second attack on a Democratic congressperson of color in four days. Just days ago, Rep. Maxwell Frost was punched in the face at the Sundance Film Festival by a man who told him “Trump was going to deport” him before screaming racist slurs and running off.

That attacker, Christian Joel Young, is being held without bail after a judge determined he posed “a substantial danger to the community.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Capitol Police released a report the same day as the Omar attack showing threats against members of Congress hit 14,938 investigations in 2025—up from 9,474 the year before. That’s a third consecutive year of increases.

This is also happening in Minneapolis, where tensions are already at a breaking point after federal agents fatally shot two anti-ICE protesters—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—17 days apart.

BOTTOM LINE: When the president spends day after day targeting specific lawmakers by name, when he tells crowds they don’t love America, when he announces investigations into them, when his supporters parrot “deport them” at anyone who isn’t white—this is what happens. Words have consequences.

And Omar, for her part, isn’t backing down: “I survived war, and I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think that they can throw at me, because I’m built that way.”