A January 2025 clip of Rep. Ilhan Omar referring to World War II as "World War Eleven" resurfaced on social media Monday, drawing a wave of mockery from conservative commentators and ordinary users who questioned how a sitting member of Congress could fumble such a basic historical reference, even while reading from prepared remarks.
The Minnesota Democrat made the verbal blunder during what appeared to be a press event alongside other congressional Democrats. She was calling for the repeal of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 when she mangled the Roman numeral.
As the New York Post reported, Omar told the cameras:
"The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, it was used to detain and deport German, Japanese, Italian immigrants during World War Eleven."
She paused, then offered a sheepish correction: "Oh... two... sorry."
The correction came fast, but not fast enough. The clip, dated January 22, 2025, had already been captured by C-SPAN cameras. And once it resurfaced months later, the internet did what the internet does.
The conservative account Libs of TikTok posted the clip on X with a blunt assessment: "I can't believe this dummy is in Congress." The post spread quickly.
Conservative columnist Ed Morrissey wrote on X that the moment was so absurd he initially doubted its authenticity:
"Was this for real? I thought it might be AI."
MAGA influencer Sarah Sizzle took a different angle, writing on X: "She learned history at the Quality Learing Center." The misspelling in Sizzle's post appeared to be a deliberate reference to a now-shuttered Minnesota day care center that was at the center of a fraud scandal last year.
Omar is no stranger to controversy surrounding that scandal. A broader investigation into alleged wrongdoing connected to her name has drawn sustained scrutiny from conservative media and congressional Republicans alike.
Other users had fun with the gaffe in creative ways. One posted an AI-generated New York Times front page jokingly blaming President Trump for starting "World War Eleven." Another suggested on X that Omar had come down with "a case of the Biden's", a jab comparing her stumble to former President Biden's well-documented verbal difficulties.
What made the moment sting was the context. Omar was not ad-libbing at a town hall or fielding a surprise question from a reporter. She was reading from prepared remarks at a press event flanked by fellow Democrats. The Roman numeral "II" was right there on the page. She read it as the number eleven.
That distinction matters. A slip of the tongue in an unscripted moment is one thing. Misreading your own talking points on camera, while making a policy argument about a law dating to 1798, is another. It raises a fair question about how carefully a lawmaker engages with the material she presents to the public.
The substantive topic Omar was addressing was not trivial. President Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members in the country illegally. Omar and her Democratic colleagues were pressing for the law's repeal, framing it as a relic of a darker era in American immigration enforcement.
But the policy argument got buried under the gaffe. Instead of a debate about executive power and immigration law, the news cycle served up a congresswoman who appeared not to know the difference between a Roman numeral and an Arabic one.
Meanwhile, a Minnesota state lawmaker has demanded answers from Omar on a separate matter after the congresswoman skipped a fraud hearing, another episode that has fed the perception of a representative who avoids accountability.
Omar has faced persistent questions that go well beyond verbal gaffes. Her financial disclosures have drawn congressional attention, with Rep. James Comer pressing felony-related questions after Omar's reported net worth plummeted from $30 million to under $100,000 in revised filings.
Her office has insisted she is "not a millionaire," but the gap between the original disclosure and the revision was wide enough to raise eyebrows on Capitol Hill and beyond. That kind of discrepancy, in any other line of work, would trigger an audit, not a press release.
President Trump himself has not been shy about criticizing Omar. Earlier this year, he used a Truth Social post to refer to her as "Low IQ Ilhan Omar." The "World War Eleven" clip gave his supporters fresh material to argue the label was earned.
Omar's office did not immediately respond to the New York Post's request for comment on the resurfaced video.
Separately, questions about Omar's political orbit in Minnesota have continued to surface. A Somali fugitive facing Medicaid fraud charges reportedly donated the maximum amount to Omar's first congressional campaign, a detail that has kept fraud-related storylines attached to her name.
Verbal slips happen to everyone in public life. Presidents, senators, governors, they all stumble. The question is what the stumble reveals. When a lawmaker is reading prepared text about a wartime law and cannot distinguish "II" from "11," it suggests a lack of basic attention to the work.
Omar holds a seat in the United States Congress. She votes on legislation that affects 330 million Americans. She sits on committees. She speaks on the House floor. The public has every right to expect that a person in that role can read her own notes correctly, especially when the subject is a federal law with real consequences for immigration enforcement.
The Alien Enemies Act debate is a serious one. Reasonable people can disagree about whether a statute from the John Adams administration should still be on the books, and whether its modern application to deport suspected gang members is a legitimate use of executive authority. That conversation deserves lawmakers who come prepared.
Instead, the country got a clip that will live forever on the internet, and a reminder that the people lecturing the rest of us about the Constitution sometimes can't get through a paragraph without tripping over a Roman numeral.
If you want to repeal a law, the least you can do is read the brief.
