Man Rushes Ilhan Omar With Syringe at Town Hall
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andrew Egger and Will Saletan give their takes on the attack at an Ilhan Omar town hall in Minnesota, where a man rushed the podium and sprayed her with an unknown substance before being arrested. Donald Trump’s response was to dismiss the attack and blame Omar. Andrew and Will break down the Republican reactions to the attack, including Rep. Randy Fine’s attempt to condemn the violence while justifying it, and what it says about the state of American politics.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, it's Andrew Eger with the bulwark, joined here by my colleague Will Salatan to talk about |
| 0:04.3 | something crazy that happened last night in Minnesota. |
| 0:07.2 | Getting a little sick of talking about the crazy stuff happening in Minnesota. |
| 0:10.5 | This is a little bit of a different one. |
| 0:12.4 | Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was at a constituent town hall meeting last night in her district when |
| 0:18.2 | she was very suddenly interrupted by a man who was sitting in the front row |
| 0:21.6 | who charged the podium where she was speaking, sprayed an unknown liquid from a syringe in his |
| 0:28.5 | hand all over the congresswoman and was then kind of broke up the event. He was arrested. She was |
| 0:35.4 | sort of shaken up, but pretty quickly returned to the event. Let's just |
| 0:39.9 | watch that take place right now. We must abolish ICE for good. And DHS Secretary Kristy |
| 0:53.3 | Nome must resign or face impeachment. |
| 1:00.5 | Whoa, whoa, whoa. |
| 1:04.2 | I don't know. |
| 1:09.0 | Oh, my God, he's sprayed something on her. |
| 1:11.6 | I need a napkin to know nothing. No, no, we'll go. We'll continue. No, we will continue. No, no, no. You need to go get chicken. No. We will continue. These fucking assholes are not going to get away with it. You need to go get checked. No, can you know what? |
| 1:27.6 | Yeah, no, no. |
| 1:29.6 | No, you don't know what you're going to. |
| 1:28.3 | No, no. |
| 1:30.3 | That's whatever this smells so bad, she needs to go get checked. |
| 1:37.3 | I don't know what that was. |
| 1:39.3 | That's what they want. |
| 1:40.3 | Please don't let them know. |
... |
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