Once upon a time, at a loss for relevance and desperate for attention, Donald Trump just started saying a bunch of bullshit about Barack Obama.
He seized upon a very stupid right-wing internet rumor that, despite the fact that Obama’s mother was an American citizen, there was a distinct possibility that he was not an American citizen, despite the fact that, well, that’s just how that works. And because we have a lot of very, very stupid people in this country who were pretty mad about having a Black president, particularly one named Barack Hussein Obama, he managed to get a whole lot of them to go along with him. It could be true, Trump insisted, that Obama was actually born in Kenya and was therefore not allowed to be president of the United States, a thing that sounded very true to those patriots unfamiliar with the Constitution of the United States of America.
He spent years and years harping on this, demanding an endless array of Hawaiian birth certificates, desperate to be the man who gave these poorly informed weirdos the thing they longed for most. They never got it, but they did end up electing him president twice (and believing they did it thrice).
And now Trump has once again trained his desire on proving that another one of his political enemies is not actually a US Citizen. Another enemy who just so happens to also be Black and have a Muslim name: Ilhan Omar. In hope of proving this, he sent federal agents to her house last week, ostensibly to look for evidence that her late father somehow did some kind of fraud when applying for their citizenship. What kind of fraud? Well, the prevailing theory is that she could have been 18 and not 17 when he applied, which would have meant she would have had to apply on her own, rather than having it conferred with his citizenship. Or that his citizenship was fraudulently obtained because he didn’t report his Somali military service on his application. Something like that. Why anyone would think there would be “evidence” of either of those things in her home, we still do not know.
While Obama doesn’t tend to weigh in so much on current affairs, because it’s generally not a thing ex-presidents who are not Donald Trump do very much, he did decide to step in this time and post a fierce criticism of Trump’s apparent vendetta.
It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts. Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically.
Congresswoman Omar went on to graduate from college, work as a community organizer, become the first Somali-American legislator elected to public office in the U.S., and win a seat in Congress. There, she has been one of the Trump Administration’s fiercest critics, which has led the president to repeatedly single her out as someone who he believes does not belong in this country.
Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen. Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case.
Think about that. The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president. And it’s not the first time this has happened. Under President Trump, the Justice Department has repeatedly gone after those he considers his political enemies — from the Attorney General of New York, to the former head of the FBI, to members of the Federal Reserve.
In those cases, the prosecutions either stalled or were dismissed for having no basis in law, and the same is likely to happen in this case. But not before Congresswoman Omar’s life has been turned upside down, her legal bills have piled up, and she’s been forced to spend time fighting unsubstantiated charges instead of serving the people of Minnesota.
The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views. Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.
God, remember what it was like to have a president who didn’t write or speak like a sad, basement-dwelling internet troll?
Naturally, because Obama posted this on X the Everything App (we really need our politicians to get off of there and stop legitimizing it, but whatever), his replies were largely filled with a bunch of people complaining that Obama had Donald Trump arrested for many crimes and therefore this is some big “turnabout is fair play” scheme. Except, you know, Obama was not president when that happened, and also Donald Trump was accused of 48 criminal acts for which there was actual evidence and for which he was convicted on 34 felony counts.
That is very different from, I don’t know, claiming that Donald Trump is the real DB Cooper and then trying to have him arrested for hijacking a commercial aircraft.
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That is also very different from the president imagining random crimes that a person who has criticized him could have hypothetically committed, and then having federal agents raid their home for the purpose of taking away their citizenship and deporting them.
Trump has, of course, long made a habit of accusing people of ridiculous, made-up crimes, even if only for the purpose of seeing how many other people he can get to go along with him. Like that time he accused Ted Cruz’s dad of being in cahoots with Lee Harvey Oswald. Or the years he spent insisting, after they were exonerated, that the Central Park/Exonerated Five were guilty.
Clearly, given the current state of the midterms, terrorizing Ilhan Omar is Trump’s way of giving his people the red meat that they crave in hopes that they will run to the ballot box to vote for more attacks like these on all of the folks for whom they have weird hate boners.
"Or the years he spent insisting, after they were exonerated, that the Central Park/Exonerated Five were guilty" .. I don't think he's even let go of this. He doesn't let go of anything, and of course never admits fault.
I'd be down for that . . .
Jo
@JoJoFromJerz
If Trump can seek a third term, Obama can too, right?
7:18 AM · Oct 28, 2025 · 68.9K Views