James Carville, Ro Khanna blast Ilhan Omar over resurfaced statements claiming Americans need to fear white men

Democratic strategist James Carville and Representative Ro Khanna have criticized resurfaced remarks made by Representative Ilhan Omar, in which she claimed Americans should be more fearful of white men.

The comments, originally made in a 2018 interview with journalist Mehdi Hasan, have gone viral again online. In the interview, Omar stated, “I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country.” She also called on the US to begin “profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.”

On Thursday, Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist, rejected the remarks, saying on the Politics War Room podcast, “When is somebody going to say, 'Why don't you people just learn to shut up about this? You're not doing anybody any good.'"

Representative Khanna also rebutted Omar’s comments, saying he disagreed with them on a political and substantive level. 

“I think that white Americans have done enormous things for our freedom,” he said. “I mean, who are the people who scaled the cliffs of Normandy? Many of them were white men.”

He continued by praising the United States as a kind and decent country, using his own family’s immigration story as an example. “What Democrats should start every speech with is ‘America is the greatest country in the world and we want to make it better,’” he argued.

Carville went on to distance himself from the radical left, saying, despite being a “liberal democrat,” he does not favor the  “progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

“My argument is maybe these people are not worth the trouble,” Carville said. “Maybe they should just go on their own way.”

Omar’s resurfaced remarks drew backlash from a number of Republican leaders. Vice President JD Vance called her statement “actual genocidal language,” while Senator Mike Lee described it as “blatant racism.” The controversy also comes as Democrats continue to struggle with white male voters, a demographic where the party underperformed in recent elections.