Omar’s Call to Profile White Men Ignites Debate on Domestic Terrorism and Racial Bias

Omar’s comments, delivered amid discussions on rising Islamophobia in the wake of high-profile terrorist attacks, were intended to redirect attention from fears of Islamist extremism to what she described as a more pervasive domestic danger. Citing data from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), she argued that white men were responsible for the majority of extremist-related murders in the U.S. at the time.

“Our country should be more fearful of white men… because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,” she added in the same interview. The statement, bold and unapologetic, reflects Omar’s long-standing advocacy for addressing systemic racism and far-right violence, but it has also drawn accusations of reverse racism and inflammatory rhetoric from critics across the political spectrum.

The timing of the clip’s reemergence could not be more charged. As of October 27, 2025, the U.S. grapples with a surge in domestic terrorism investigations, including several foiled plots linked to white nationalist groups amid ongoing cultural battles over immigration and identity. Posts sharing the video have amassed over 2 million interactions on X alone, with conservative influencers like Eyal Yakoby amplifying it to highlight perceived hypocrisies in Democratic priorities.

Yakoby, a vocal critic of progressive foreign policy, quipped in his widely shared post: “I have a different idea: We monitor Islamist cells in the US who are working on behalf of foreign terrorist organizations.” Such responses underscore the polarized lens through which Omar’s words are now viewed, turning a seven-year-old soundbite into a flashpoint for broader anxieties about equity and security.

To understand the firestorm, one must revisit the context of Omar’s remarks. The 2018 interview occurred shortly after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, where a white supremacist killed 11 people in an attack fueled by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. That year had already seen the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a neo-Nazi drove into counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer.

According to the ADL’s annual report on extremist murders, 78 percent of the 50 such killings in 2018 were committed by white supremacists, predominantly men. Omar, then a newly elected member of Congress and one of the first Muslim women in the House, was responding to Hasan’s question about public fears of “jihadist Islam” following events like the Manchester Arena bombing.

Her pivot was deliberate: While acknowledging the trauma of Islamist attacks, Omar contended that media and policy fixation on them often overshadowed the “homegrown” threat of white extremism. “People are fearful of jihadist Islam due to these examples, what do you have to say about that?” Hasan pressed. Omar replied by flipping the script, emphasizing empirical data over anecdote. “We should be making policies to fight the radicalization of white men,” she insisted, framing it as a matter of public safety rather than partisan score-settling.

Supporters of Omar view this as a courageous stand against selective outrage. Civil rights advocates, including those from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), have long documented the rise of white nationalist groups, whose online recruitment has ballooned since the 2016 election. In a 2025 SPLC report, domestic terrorism incidents linked to far-right ideologies outnumbered those tied to Islamist extremism by a 3-to-1 margin over the past five years. “Rep. Omar is spotlighting a reality that’s uncomfortable for many: The greatest threat to American lives comes from within our borders, from ideologies peddled in plain sight,” said Maya Rahman, policy director at the ACLU’s racial justice program. Rahman points to Omar’s own experiences—as a Somali refugee who fled civil war and faced death threats in Congress—as lending authenticity to her voice on marginalization and violence.

Yet, the backlash has been swift and unforgiving. Conservative commentators and Republican leaders have seized on the clip to portray Omar as emblematic of “woke” overreach, accusing her of stoking racial division at a time when national unity is frayed. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) referenced the statement indirectly during a October 20 floor speech, warning against “policies that target Americans based on skin color.” On X, the video has inspired a torrent of memes and outrage posts, with users like @ThomasSowell (a quote-sharing account) garnering nearly 1 million views by pairing it with captions decrying “anti-white bigotry.” One viral thread from @joeroganhq, the Joe Rogan Podcast fan page, juxtaposed Omar’s words with clips of recent border security debates, implying a double standard in threat assessment.

Critics argue that Omar’s language—particularly the call for “profiling” and “monitoring”—echoes the very surveillance tactics decried by progressives when applied to Muslim communities post-9/11. “This is the pot calling the kettle white supremacist,” quipped commentator Ben Shapiro in a recent podcast episode, noting that Omar has repeatedly condemned the FBI’s watchlisting of mosques. Indeed, under the Trump administration’s 2017 counter-extremism strategy, white supremacists were not prioritized for monitoring to the same degree as Islamist groups, a disparity that persisted into the Biden era despite executive orders aimed at rectification. A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found that only 14 percent of federal domestic terrorism resources were allocated to far-right threats, compared to 62 percent for international ones.

The irony is not lost on figures like Derrick Evans, a former West Virginia state lawmaker and January 6 defendant, who reposted the clip with the caption: “This is why we need secure borders—before they profile us all.” Evans and others frame Omar’s stance as part of a broader Squad agenda that, in their view, undermines Second Amendment rights under the guise of anti-racism. Gun control debates have intertwined with this discourse; Omar has co-sponsored bills like the Assault Weapons Ban of 2021, which some opponents label as veiled attacks on rural, predominantly white demographics.

Omar’s office has not issued a new statement on the viral clip as of press time, but in past responses to similar controversies, she has doubled down on data-driven advocacy. A spokesperson told The Atlantic in 2019 that the congresswoman’s goal was “to save lives by addressing the root causes of violence, regardless of who perpetrates it.” This aligns with her legislative record: As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Omar has pushed for increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grants, which support community-led deradicalization programs. In 2023, she introduced the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which would mandate threat assessments for all forms of extremism, including white supremacist networks like The Base and Atomwaffen Division.

To delve deeper into the substance of her claim, consider the numbers. The ADL’s 2024 audit, released just last month, recorded 33 extremist murders in the U.S., with 25 attributed to white supremacists—mostly men acting alone or in small cells. High-profile cases include the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting, where Payton Gendron, a white 18-year-old, killed 10 Black shoppers in a racially motivated attack, and the 2023 Allen, Texas, mall shooting by Mauricio Garcia, a Latino man radicalized online by neo-Nazi ideology. These incidents, while tragic outliers, fuel Omar’s argument that radicalization pipelines—often via platforms like 4chan and Gab—warrant proactive intervention.

Experts in counterterrorism echo parts of her prescription, albeit with caveats. “Profiling based on race or gender is constitutionally fraught and ineffective; it’s behaviors and networks we should target,” said Arie Perliger, director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. Perliger, whose research tracks over 1,000 U.S. far-right incidents since 2010, advocates for “smart monitoring”—using AI-driven social media analysis to flag hate speech without blanket demographic sweeps. Yet, he acknowledges the demographic skew: Over 90 percent of far-right perpetrators in his dataset are white males under 40, often isolated by economic despair or online echo chambers.

This demographic reality complicates the narrative. Rural white men, hit hard by deindustrialization and opioid crises, are overrepresented in militia groups like the Oath Keepers, as detailed in a 2025 RAND Corporation study. But painting them with a broad brush risks alienating allies in the fight against extremism. “Omar’s rhetoric, while rooted in facts, can come across as punitive rather than preventive,” noted sociologist Kathleen Belew, author of Bring the War Home. Belew, who studies white power movements, suggests community-based interventions—like job training in Rust Belt towns—could address radicalization’s socioeconomic drivers more effectively than surveillance.

The viral clip’s spread has also amplified misogynistic and xenophobic attacks on Omar, reviving old smears about her personal life and immigrant status. Posts from accounts like @BipulTweets accuse her of hypocrisy, linking her words to unrelated crimes while using derogatory language. Such vitriol underscores a deeper tension: As the first hijab-wearing Muslim in Congress, Omar embodies the multicultural America her critics fear. Her election in 2018, alongside Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, marked a watershed for representation, but it also invited relentless scrutiny. A 2024 Pew Research survey found that 58 percent of Republicans view the Squad as “anti-American,” a sentiment that Omar’s statement has only intensified.

On the left, there’s quiet unease too. Some progressive activists worry that Omar’s focus on white men distracts from intersectional threats, like the radicalization of people of color within far-right spaces—a phenomenon explored in The American Journal of Sociology‘s recent issue on hybrid extremism. “We need policies that don’t pit groups against each other,” said organizer Aisha Rahman of Black Lives Matter Minnesota. Yet, in private conversations with allies, Omar reportedly sees this as a necessary provocation to force a reckoning with America’s “blind spots.”

As Congress reconvenes next month to debate the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes provisions for domestic terrorism funding, Omar’s words loom large. Will lawmakers heed her call for balanced threat assessment, or will partisan gridlock prevail? The debate encapsulates a nation at odds: one where data clashes with dogma, and fear—of the “other,” of surveillance, of irrelevance—drives the discourse.

In the end, Omar’s unfiltered plea challenges America to confront its monsters not just abroad, but in the mirror. Whether it fosters policy or further fracture remains an open question. For now, the clip circulates like a digital Molotov, illuminating the fault lines of a divided republic.