Wyoming Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman voted with 213 other House members Wednesday to censure Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar and strip her of her committee assignments.
While the measure ultimately failed by a single vote — and after four Republicans crossed the aisle against the censure — Hageman said it’s an example of holding people accountable for how they act and what they say.
In this case, Omar’s controversial comments about Charlie Kirk came about a week after he was gunned down at an event on a Utah college campus.
Omar reposted a video that called out Kirk as a “reprehensible human being” and opined on a Substack podcast in a way that many Republicans took as a veiled way of saying Kirk was responsible for his death.
“I think that there were some pretty horrific things said there about Charlie, and one of the things that I’ve noticed is that Charlie wasn’t killed for the things that he said (or) the things that people claim that he said,” Hageman said Thursday on the Cowboy State Daily Show with Jake Nichols.
She was responding to not only Omar’s comments, but also to those of others.
The lesson now is accountability, she said.
Although Omar retained her spots on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Budget Committee, it was by the slimmest of margins.
It took the four GOP crossovers to save her from censure, and two represent states neighboring Wyoming. They are Reps. Mike Flood of Nebraska, Jeff Hurd of Colorado, Cory Mills of Florida and Tom McClntock of California.
While he ultimately voted against the censure, McClintock didn’t hold back on Omar’s comments in an interview with Fox News.
“Ilhan Omar’s comments regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk are vile and contemptible,” he said. “They deserve the harshest criticism of every man and woman of good will.
“But this disgusting and hateful speech is still speech, and is protected by our First Amendment.”
That may be true, Hageman said, but that doesn’t mean you can escape the consequences of that free speech.
That’s what happened in the case of late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, whose show was pulled off the air Wednesday.
“There’s one other thing that I think people need to understand as well, and that is when you say something horrific and horrible about someone who was just assassinated, your employer might have some consequences for you,” Hageman said.
She also said that the controversiy with Omar has been a "distraction."
What Did She Say?
The comments that got everyone riled up — especially South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who has a longstanding feud with Omar — insinuated Kirk brought the attack on himself.
“But what I do know for sure is that Charlie Kirk was someone who once said, ‘Guns save lives’ after a school shooting,” Omar said in an interview with Zeteo Town Hall with Mehdi Masan. “Charlie was someone who was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police … (and) downplay slavery and what Black people have gone through in this country …”
Later in the interview, she said Mace and Trump have “incited violence against people like me.”
Hageman declined to say much about the Republicans who voted against Omar’s censure and that, “I don’t know what is in their hearts or in their heads. I haven’t spoken to any one of them since the vote yesterday.”
“I’m not going to impugn their character in any way,” she continued. “I’m just going to say that they voted the way that they believed they needed to vote. I don’t know why. I would probably ask a couple of them today what they were thinking, why they made the decision that they did.
“But this is just one of those things that happens in Congress when you have this narrow of a majority. Sometimes it’s kind of difficult to herd the cats, and that’s what happened yesterday.”
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
