Omar Receives Rock Star’s Welcome Upon Arrival at Minnesota Airport: ‘Welcome Home Ilhan’

A group of celebratory supporters greeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) upon her arrival in her home state Thursday night, following a week loaded with controversy and fighting on Capitol Hill.

Omar – who has been the subject of controversy over the last week, following President Trump’s call for her and other “Squad” members to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” and “come back and show us how it is done” – received a star’s welcome upon her arrival in her home state. A crowd of supporters greeted her, shouting, “Welcome home Ilhan.”

She retweeted the video with the caption, “It’s good to be home.”

The warm greeting came in the wake of an ongoing battle between Omar’s “Squad” and the president.

During Trump’s rally in Greenville, North Carolina Wednesday evening, the crowd broke into a “send her back” chant. However, the crowd did not start chanting the phrase until Trump mentioned the lawmaker’s history of “launching vicious, antisemitic screeds.”

The president told reporters on Thursday that he “felt a little bit badly” about the crowd’s chant.

“It was quite a chant, I felt a little bit badly about it, but I will say this, I did start speaking very quickly,” Trump said. “I was not happy with it, I disagree with it, but again, I didn’t say that, they did.”

Omar, to the contrary, has refused to express remorse for her past controversial statements. She was given the opportunity to apologize during a Wednesday appearance on CBS This Morning, but she ultimately refused to express regret for her words.

“Oftentimes there are things that you might say that would not hold weight for you, but to someone else, right, the way we hear and consume information is very different from how the next person might be. Nothing I said was meant for that purpose,” she told CBS’s Gayle King.

When asked if she regretted her past statements, she said: “I do not.”

“I do not, but I am grateful for the opportunity to really learn how my words have made people feel and take every opportunity I have to make sure people understand that I apologize for it,” she added.