Omar calls Mace a 'drunk' after Khamenei post, Mace fires back with 'Third World' jab

Rep. Ilhan Omar called Rep. Nancy Mace a "drunk" on Sunday after Mace posted a sarcastic tribute to Omar and fellow Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib following the death of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mace had posted a picture of Khamenei on X Saturday night alongside a message dripping with mock sympathy:

"My heart goes out to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib tonight. Sending them thoughts and prayers."

Omar, the Minnesota Democrat and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, did not take it quietly. She swung back with a reference to recent accusations that Mace drinks excessively:

"I hope you aren't drunk and took your staff's advice, Rashida and I don't know this man and feel confident he didn't care about us."

Omar continued, urging Mace to "stay off social media when you are drunk" and adding, "I pray in his holy month you find peace and respect for your self."

Mace, never one to leave a round in the chamber, corrected Omar's grammar and escalated:

"Honey, it's 'please refrain' not 'please restrain.' This is what happens when your staff is from the Third World and can't speak proper English."

And that, in miniature, is where the Democratic caucus stands on the most significant U.S. military operation in years: not debating strategy or outcomes, but trading personal insults on social media while the regime that chanted "Death to America" for four decades lost its supreme leader.

Omar's real objection

The spat might read as petty theater, but Omar's posts over the weekend reveal something more substantial than a wounded ego. She opposed the strikes themselves.

On Saturday, as news of Khamenei's death during the joint U.S.-Israeli Operation Absolute Fury strikes broke, Omar took to X to condemn the entire operation, reported the New York Post:

"The American people are sick and tired of endless wars built on false promises and paid for with innocent lives. Congress must immediately pass [the] Khanna-Massie War Powers Resolution."

Before the strikes even hit, she had already framed the military action as religious persecution, writing that "the US apparently loves to strike Muslim countries during Ramadan" and that she was "convinced it isn't what these countries have done to violate international law but about who they worship."

Set that beside the reality for a moment. Iran's theocratic regime has hanged dissidents, crushed women's protests, funded terrorist proxies across the Middle East, and pursued nuclear weapons in defiance of international agreements. Omar's framing skips all of that. In her telling, the issue is not what Iran's government has done. It is that its people are Muslim and the calendar reads Ramadan.

That is not anti-war principle. That is deflection dressed in religious sensitivity.

The drinking accusations and Mace's baggage

Omar's "drunk" attack was not conjured from thin air. Last month, a New York Magazine story accused Mace of drinking alcohol "excessively" and tasking staffers with late-night runs to liquor stores. Several former staffers publicly backed the claims.

Mace has vehemently disputed the accusations, saying she suffers from hemochromatosis, a condition where excessive iron builds up in key organs such as the heart, pancreas, and liver, which she described as a "lifelong genetic affliction that prevents me from consuming much alcohol."

Whether the accusations hold up is a separate matter. What matters here is that Omar reached for a personal attack when confronted with a political provocation about a dead dictator. The Squad member could have simply stated, as she eventually did, that she doesn't know Khamenei and never supported him. That would have been a clean rebuttal. Instead, she led with the drinking jab, and the story became about the catfight rather than the policy.

Which, conveniently, kept the spotlight off her opposition to the strikes.

A pattern, not an incident

Omar and Mace have frequently traded barbs on social media over the years. This is not new territory for either of them. In January, Mace attempted to get the House Oversight Committee to subpoena records that might show whether Omar married her brother. The two have turned congressional collegiality into a contact sport.

But there is an asymmetry worth noting. Mace, who is vying to be governor of South Carolina, has applauded the killing of Khamenei and efforts to undermine the Iranian regime. She celebrated the end of a tyrant. Omar condemned the operation that ended him and immediately pivoted to demanding Congress constrain the president's ability to act.

One lawmaker looked at the death of a man who oversaw decades of terrorism, oppression, and nuclear brinkmanship, and said good. The other looked at the same event and said America went too far.

The Squad's Ramadan shield

Omar's pre-strike complaint about the timing deserves scrutiny on its own terms. Ramadan spans February 17 to March 19 this year. By Omar's logic, the U.S. military should stand down for an entire month because the adversary's population observes a religious holiday. No serious national security framework operates that way. Adversaries do not pause their weapons programs for Lent, Passover, or Diwali, and the United States does not owe hostile regimes a scheduling courtesy.

The argument also contains its own contradiction. Omar insists the strikes are "about who they worship," implying bigotry. But if religion were the motive, the U.S. would not have allied with Sunni Gulf states, maintained partnerships across the Muslim world, or limited its strikes to the specific regime that has destabilized the region for decades. The target was not a faith. It was a government.

Mace's original post was blunt and deliberately provocative. Fair enough. But Omar's response told a more revealing story than Mace's post ever could. When pressed on the most consequential military action of the year, the Squad's instinct was not to engage on the merits. It was to call someone a drunk and hide behind Ramadan.

Mace's office did not respond to a request for comment. It didn't need to. The exchange spoke for itself.