Tipsheet

Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate's Claim About the 'Real Domestic Threat' Is Circulating Again

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  July 17, 2025 10:00 AM

Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh, who’s being described as Minnesota’s version of Zohran Mamdani, once argued that white people are the “real domestic threat.”

The state senator’s comments came during a debate over allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

Republican Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen reminded the Senate the reason the law was changed 20 years ago was in response to terrorists using state identifications to board the airplanes used in the 9/11 attacks. Gruenhagen asked the authors of the bill what will prevent terrorists from repeating this sequence, especially knowing the REAL ID provisions will not be in effect for another 18 months. Fateh failed to address Gruenhagen’s question but did use it to launch into an attack on the entire Republican caucus.

He began his remarks with the premise that, “Our immigrant community are not here to break the law.” That may be true in the sense that many immigrants don’t come to Minnesota for the purpose of committing crime, but Democrats have to stop ignoring the original crime committed by immigrants when they cross the border and jump the line on others trying to gain citizenship the right way.

But that was just the warm-up. Fateh adopted a “how dare you” tone and took it to another level with his next comments:

“We heard them being called terrorists, we heard them being called drug dealers, we heard a lot of insults. We heard that they are a threat to our national security. And that’s a flat-out lie. You wanna know who the real threat is, Madam President? I’ll give you a hint. They don’t look like our chief author. They don’t look like the folks up in the gallery. They don’t look like the folks out in the rotunda. They look like many of the members that sit in the front.

“And you don’t have to take my word for it. According to DHS, Madam President, the greatest domestic threat facing the United States comes from, quote, racially or ethnically violent extremists specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.” (American Experiment)

Those remarks, which prompted an ethics complaint, are once again circulating on social media in light of his mayoral candidacy.