Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert sparked fury on Thursday when video emerged of her telling an Islamophobic joke to a crowd of supporters - recounting a supposed encounter which was quickly confirmed as a lie.
Boebert, a 34-year-old gun rights activist and fervent Trump supporter, was speaking during what the website Patriot Takes said was a Thanksgiving gathering.
Commanding the stage like a stand-up comedienne, she told the crowd: 'Actually I have an Ilhan story for you.'
She began to describe an encounter with Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman who - along with Rashida Tlaib - is the first Muslim woman elected to Congress.
Lauren Boebert, the Colorado congresswoman, was at an event where she told a story about Ilhan Omar, representative for Minnesota
With the Stars and Stripes hanging behind her, Boebert tells her 'joke'
Over the Thanksgiving break, Lauren Boebert said she was recently in a Capitol elevator with Ilhan Omar when a fretful Capitol police officer ran up.
Lauren Boebert said: “Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine.”
Boebert then called Ilhan Omar, “jihad squad.” pic.twitter.com/Y7f0nFbnud
— PatriotTakes (@patriottakes) November 25, 2021
'So the other night was not my first 'jihad squad' moment,' said Boebert.
'I was getting into an elevator with one of my staffers. And he and I were leaving the Capitol, we're going back to my office, we get in the elevator, and I see a Capitol Police officer running, hurriedly, to the elevator.
'I see threat all over his face, and he's reaching. The door's shutting, and I can't open it.
'I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar.
'And I say well, she doesn't have a backpack, we should be fine.'
The crowd reacted with a mixture of shocked gasps and muffled
