Dana Milbank: Ilhan Omar Is Using President Trump’s Playbook

EXCERPT:

HILL: "I want to bring in 'Washington Post' columnist Dana Milbank. So, Dana, you have a column out titled, Ilhan Omar is using President Trump’s playbook. Explain to us what do you mean by that?"
MILBANK: "Well, look, for -- American-Muslims above all have been the victims of this sort of questioning of their loyalty to the country. You’ve seen it when the president talked of having as a candidate the Muslim ban. You see people on the far right saying, well, they believe in Sharia law and therefore can’t serve in government. You see these anti-Sharia laws popping up in most states. And it’s all about suggesting that there’s divided loyalty there. So, I think the irony now is we have Congresswoman Omar doing the same thing in a sense to Jewish-Americans by saying that, you know, if you are pro-Israel, you are — you have allegiance to a foreign country. Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with saying -- you know, criticizing Israel, you know, get behind blocking foreign aid to Israel, those sorts of things aren’t perceived as anti-Semitic, it’s the -- it's the questioning of the motive just as she did earlier when she said, you know, support for Israel is all about the Benjamins. It suggests that there is something nefarious going on and that people who are supportive of Israel, that is, largely American-Jews have divided loyalties and are not loyal to America."