“Ilhan Omar is garbage,” said President Donald Trump of the Democrat representative from Minneapolis Somalia. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”

Hoo boy, Trump does know how to stir the pot!

No one should even pretend to be shocked by what Trump says anymore. Ruffling feathers is his MO. But by all means, let’s talk about presidents and presidential candidates saying insulting things.

Trump made those remarks in a cabinet meeting, though it’s not the only time he’s had bad things to say about Somalis.

I don’t want ‘em in our country, I’ll be honest with you. Some people will say, “Ooh, that’s not politically correct!” I don’t care. I don’t want 'em in our country. Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want 'em in our country. …

Our country’s at a tipping point. We could go bad. … We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.

Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, “Let’s go, come on. Let’s make this place great.” These are people that do nothing but complain. …

When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but b****, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.

Perhaps those comments are or should be beneath the dignity of the Oval Office. Imagine George Washington or Ronald Reagan saying such a thing.

However, Trump is just saying out loud what many Americans think and say themselves. And he’s right about the specifics. He also didn’t insult anyone for immutable characteristics (i.e., racism), but focused on their actions and contributions to society, or lack thereof.

Somali migrants, many represented by Ilhan “I Married My Brother to Commit Immigration Fraud” Omar, have been working a huge scam to steal a billion dollars from American citizen taxpayers. The level of COVID relief and Medicaid fraud is astounding. Democrats particularly hate it when money for their redistribution schemes is threatened by constitutional or tax restraint. But they have no problem when Somalis steal from programs meant for poor families, children, and the disabled.

Americans have every right to think those criminals are “garbage.”

Especially when those criminals and their representative hate America. Though the “fact-checkers” rallied to her defense, one might have good reason to doubt Omar’s loyalty.

Our Samantha Koch has more on that scam today.

In response to Trump, National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez argues, “It is despicable to call human beings 'garbage.’” She makes a compelling pro-life case for how we talk about other people, and, as a fellow Christian, I certainly agree that humans are made in God’s image and we ought to be very careful and circumspect when harshly condemning others. We’re all pretty messy sometimes. I know I don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of pointed criticism, especially when I deserve it, and I try to remember that when dishing it out.

However, I also don’t think that “judge not” is a blanket prohibition on deciding whether another person is doing terrible things or has bad character.

If you steal massive amounts of money, you might be garbage. If you violently traffic humans and drugs, you might be garbage. If you sexually abuse minor girls as a rich guy with an island — or as a “refugee” from Somalia — you might be garbage. If you murder innocent Americans, you might be garbage. I have little problem saying so.

Whether the American president — maybe especially one with Trump’s personal history — ought to say such things is another matter.

Yet even there, consider these things:

Barack Obama derided his political opponents because they “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.” Hillary Clinton called her political opponents a “basket of deplorables.” In the most direct comparison, Joe Biden labeled Trump’s supporters “garbage,” which, fortunately, precipitated Trump’s hilarious garbage truck response. All of those Democrats, especially Biden and his sidekick/replacement Kamala Harris, falsely derided (implicitly or explicitly) people on the Right as Nazis, fascists, white supremacists, and the like. They clearly hold conservative Americans in contempt, and on multiple occasions, Biden even threatened those Americans.

Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate and the Minnesota governor who might be complicit in the aforementioned fraud, said we “should demonize” people like Elon Musk and “bully the s**t” out of Trump. Now he worries that Trump has “normalized this type of hateful behavior.”

Do you know what the difference is between their comments and Trump’s?

Those Democrats were condemning law-abiding Christian conservative Americans. Trump is expressing justifiable frustration with criminal Somalis who generally hate this country. Yes, Omar is a U.S. citizen, but she is also a criminal. She just didn’t have a Manhattan DA fabricate a bunch of felonies to get a conviction.

So, I guess if people want to get especially worked up about Trump because his rant was more colorful than the typical slimy utterances of Democrats, fine. Just don’t pretend that somehow he’s “breaking norms” or is a unique brand of awful. And for heaven’s sake, quit with the fantasies that places like Somalia aren’t complete disasters because the people there do terrible things. We have enough trouble in this country without importing that kind of, well, garbage.

Follow Nate Jackson on X.