The apple apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and her 21-year-old daughter Isra Hirsi.
Hirsi, a junior at Barnard College and organizer of the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, was arrested and suspended last week for her involvement in the anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University. And it didn’t take long for the media to come calling.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Emily Jashinsky, host of The Federalist Radio Hour, and Eliana Johnson, editor of The Washington Free Beacon, to discuss the attention Hirsi has received from Teen Vogue, MSNBC, and more as she lamented the way she was treated by the school and law enforcement.
Omar’s Daughter Suspended
Hirsi was among a handful of Barnard students who were suspended from the all-girls college after being arrested for their involvement in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University that began last week.
Columbia and Barnard students started their tent city in the center of the Manhattan campus around 4am on Wednesday, the same day Columbia University President Nemat Shafik was testifying at a congressional hearing about on-campus antisemitism.
By Thursday afternoon, Shafik alerted Columbia students and faculty that she was allowing the New York City Police Department onto the campus to dismantle the encampment. That coincided with the arrest of Hirsi, who also posted on X about her suspension for, in her words, “standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide.”
The media has seemingly been clamoring for Hirsi’s attention ever since. “She’s made herself a public face of these protests… and got the full Teen Vogue treatment,” Megyn noted.
The Teen Vogue Treatment
On Sunday, the mag published an interview with Hirsi under the headline “Isra Hirsi, Ilhan Omar’s Daughter, On Columbia Arrests, Barnard Suspension, Palestine Protests,” in which recounts allegedly spending seven hours in zip-ties while waiting for processing at NYPD headquarters and subsequently being removed from Barnard. “She [acts like] she was basically just kicked out of the last homeless shelter in New York with no food and no roof over her head,” Megyn said.
In the interview, Hirsi claims she was “basically evicted” from her tent city and, eventually, her on-campus dorm room. Upon learning of her suspension, Hirsi told Teen Vogue that, “at that moment, we made an announcement to the camp — because there were an overwhelming amount of Barnard students at camp — and let them know that we had been basically evicted and not allowed into our space, but also officially suspended.”
Later, while waiting to be charged with trespassing and released from police custody, Hirsi said her roommates brought her “a bag of clothes because they knew that I was likely evicted.”
Rather than take the school up on its offer to give her 15 minutes to collect her belongings, she chose to stay away. “I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that,’” she told Teen Vogue. “But I was a little bit frantic, like, ‘Where am I going to sleep? Where am I gonna go?’”
She proceeded to claim that she has also been struggling to find food. “I cannot go to the dining hall. I sent them an email like, ‘Hey, I rely on campus for my meals, I rely on my dining plan,’ and they were like, ‘Oh, you can come pick up a prepackaged bag of food,’ a full 48 hours after I was suspended,” she said. “There was no food support, no nothing.”
Megyn was unmoved. “Could you spare me,” she asked. “I’ve only got crocodile tears for this person.”
MSNBC Interview
Hirsi and a fellow organizer were also welcomed on MSNBC over the weekend to discuss their ordeal. Host Ayman Mohyeldin asked the women if they felt like they were being “targeted” because they were demonstrating “in solidarity with Palestinians and against what Israel is doing to Palestinians.”
Both students were absolutely certain they were being targeted because “counter protestors” regularly have “flags and things like that” that are “not seen as having unsanctioned protests.” Hirsi also used the opportunity to drum up claims that “chemical weapons” have been used against her group:
“There is definitely some hypocrisy here, you can kind of see it with the students that were, that were– sprayed us with the chemical weapons and the fact that there is no public information as to what happened to them, but rather the university is actively discussing what is happening to the students here and making it a whole public spectacle… when we haven’t done anything to physically harm students, whereas those that sprayed those chemical weapons physically harmed students.”
The only problem? The “chemical weapons” she was referring to were found to be fart sprays. “Let’s just start with the facts: The ‘chemical weapon’ in question was a fart spray purchased on Amazon for $26 called Liquid Ass,” Johnson noted.
And those involved in unleashing the odorous mist were punished, contrary to Hirsi’s claims. “The students who sprayed that were suspended, which is why they are now suing Columbia University for accusing them of spraying a chemical weapon,” Johnson explained. “They were suspended immediately, and [the] Columbia president testified before the Columbia University Senate and said that these students have used chemical weapons… so [Shafik] spread this misinformation.”
Omar Responds
It would appear as though Hirsi also has support on the home front. Omar tweeted that she is “enormously proud” of her daughter, who she said “has always led with courage and compassion.”
The post came on the heels of the congresswoman trying to get Shafik to admit at last week’s hearing that there has been no antisemitism on display at the protests that have happened at Columbia since October 7 despite reporting to the contrary.
And as Johnson noted, Omar failed to mention her own conflict of interest. “Her mother was questioning the Columbia University president, weighing in on behalf of the protesters, and never disclosed to the American public that her daughter is one of the protesters who is going to suffer the consequences,” she said. “One would think at least in the interest of propriety that Rep. Omar would say, ‘My daughter is on the campus and she is one of these agitators’… She didn’t say a word about that.”
You can check out Megyn’s interview with Jashinsky and Johnson by tuning in to episode 772 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.