BROADCAST BIAS: Media had Omar’s number, she didn’t have WWII’s. Journalists didn’t care

Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar checks so many boxes on the wokeness list: Black, female, Muslim refugee from Africa. It’s a born-on-third-base situation. Liberal journalists would consider her President Donald Trump’s worst nightmare. That’s why they celebrated her victorious first campaign for Congress in 2018.

So, when Omar messes up — an 11 on a scale of one to 10 — the media couldn’t care less. This week, the liberal congresswoman was in the news for having read World War II as "World War Eleven." It wasn’t a major gaffe because the press chose to cover for her instead of covering the mistake. As they have throughout her entire career.

On Nov. 7, 2018, CBS correspondent Jim Axelrod simply touted Omar for becoming "the first-ever Somali-American elected to Congress" at age 36. "Born in Somalia, she and her family fled the violence of civil war when she was 8. After years in a refugee camp in Kenya, she immigrated to the U.S. when she was 11, learning English in three months."

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On NBC, congressional correspondent Kasie Hunt rolled Omar into a report that touted gains for Democratic women. 

"The newest Congress featuring more than 100 women, a new record. Among them, the first Muslim women, Michigan's Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota's Ilhan Omar."

"Diversity, equity, and inclusion" goals translate to media coddling, polishing and defusing. But the broadcast networks have a partisan tendency to celebrate Democrat firsts and ignore similar Republican firsts as they did in 2018, touting Omar and skipping California Republican Rep. Young Kim of California becoming one of the first Korean-American women elected to Congress.

They didn’t focus on Omar’s antisemitism. In a November 2012 tweet, Omar proclaimed, "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."

Within a month of being elected, Omar inspired a bipartisan resolution against antisemitism when she suggested money from a Jewish PAC was driving U.S. politicians to defend Israel, writing, "it's all about the Benjamins baby." Since most Democrats were appalled, the networks briefly covered it.

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But, overall, Omar has been covered less as an offender and more as the offended. The latest wave of positive coverage came last December when President Donald Trump called Omar "garbage" after massive fraud by Somali-Americans in Minnesota was uncovered. One of the fraudsters who pleaded guilty last year was Guhaad Hashi Said, who worked as a staffer on Omar’s first two congressional campaigns.

On the Dec. 7, 2025, "Face the Nation" episode, CBS host Margaret Brennan tossed Omar a softball that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent "alleged that people who were tied to you or your campaign were involved in this broad, brazen scheme to rip off the Minnesota state welfare system. Do you want to respond to that? Do you know what he is referring to?" 

Omar replied, "I really don't, and I don't think the secretary himself understands what he's referring to."

Then in January at a town hall meeting, a strange man squirted a plastic syringe of liquid (apparently white wine vinegar) at Omar as she proposed abolishing ICE, and everyone covered the news of this "assault." Nobody should be squirting things on politicians, but some politicians are much more cherished than others.

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ABC pointed fingers at right-wingers. Congressional reporter Jay O'Brien emphasized, "Omar has been a frequent target for conservative anger. President Trump has called her garbage and mocked her Somali heritage." 

Trump told his ABC colleague Rachel Scott "she probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."

The same people who express concern at Omar getting a squirt of an "unknown substance" were amused in 2008 when an Iraqi threw a shoe at the head of President George W. Bush at a press conference. 

"An instant pop culture classic," gushed ABC "Nightline" host Terry Moran.

This week, the huge Libs of TikTok X account displayed video of Omar in January making a comical gaffe, reading from her notes about "World War II" and instead calling it "World War Eleven," sparking a wave of satire, including jokes about sequels, like "Back to the Future Eleven," our island state Hawa-eleven and, of course, her name looks like Eleven-han Omar.

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The networks ignored that. It was no Dan Quayle moment, when the vice president read off a card at a spelling bee that potato was spelled "potatoe." 

These are minor gaffes, but in Quayle’s case, it was fodder for liberal comedians for years. He was lampooned as a stupid person. Newsweek rushed to "fact check" a true video, claiming it "has been shared online without context" because Omar corrected herself.

None of the networks have been interested in the ongoing mess over her financial statements to Congress. Omar's filing valued her husband Tim Mynett's winery, eSt Cru Wines, at about $1 million to $5 million. Mynett's venture capital management company, Rose Lake Capital, was valued between $5 million and $25 million. But to proclaim that Omar’s "net worth skyrocketed," a spokesperson for her called it a "right-wing smear campaign."

On April 4, Mynett’s winery abruptly shut down as House Republicans investigated their finances. Omar now claims that the value of her and her husband's assets is between $18,004 and $95,000 and not, as originally reported, between $6 million and $30 million.

All this revisionist history has been spurred by Republicans and conservative media outlets. The same broadcast networks that spent hours of time on New York Republican Rep. George Santos until he was expelled from Congress refuse to live up to their righteous boasting that they "hold government accountable." 

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