THURSDAY: $44 million, the president said!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2026

The number may really be 6: Three cheers for the street-fighting New York Times! In Annie Karni's report today, they went directly after this ten-year-old chestnut:

Attack on Omar at a Town Hall Followed Years of Trump’s Vitriol

[...]

For years, Mr. Trump has also helped spread the baseless conspiracy theory that she was married to her brother and residing in the United States illegally.

“She should get the hell out,” Mr. Trump said at his December rally in Pennsylvania. “Throw her the hell out! She does nothing but complain.”

The crowd responded by chanting: “Send her back! Send her back!”

So went that part of the vitriol. 

Was the president making an accurate claim when he whipped up the crowd that day? After ten years, he and his acolyte, the Fox News Channel's disordered Greg Gutfeld, should go out and prove their claim.

Gutfeld pimps this claim on a regular basis, with his stooges enthusiastically agreeing and having fun with claims about "incest." In our view, the Times has failed to bear witness to the world in its timorous refusal to report what happens on the Fox News Channel's programs.

We're glad to see that the New York Times went after that claim today. In our own report this morning, we postponed consideration of another claim by President Trump. We omitted this part of Kasni's report concerning Omar's net worth:

Earlier this week, Mr. Trump announced on Truth Social that the Justice Department was investigating Ms. Omar who, he claimed “left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars.” Ms. Omar’s financial disclosures show that her husband, a venture capitalist, makes millions of dollars in income. But it was not clear how the president arrived at the $44 million figure. An investigation into Ms. Omar’s finances begun under the Biden administration appeared to have stalled for lack of evidence.

For the record, did Omar “leave Somalia with nothing?" Quite possibly! She was eight years old at the time!

We don't think Karni did a great job with that particular accusation. (It's easy to make these claims, time-consuming to straighten them out.) Is Omar really worth $44 million? Let us say this about that!

First, we can almost surely tell you where the president got "the $44 million figure." Like every number he cites in public, he almost surely got it straight out of his keister!

With respect to that particular claim by the president, Forbes has already offered a brief analysis under this eye-rolling headline:

Trump Claims Ilhan Omar Is Worth $44M. Here’s Why That’s Highly Unlikely.

"Highly unlikely," the news org said. But then, what else is new?

The Forbes report includes a set of "Key Facts" about the complicated way members on Congress are required to report their holdings. It also mentions the fact that the holdings in question are those of Omar's husband, a fact which tends to disappear when the messenger children at Fox begin to toy with this general topic, as they persistently do.

(As best we can tell, the Forbes analysis is available without any paywall blockade.)

$44 million? Too high! On Fox, it's more commonly said that Omar is mysteriously worth $30 million, not the president's inflated 44. Here's a report from Politico which gives us a look at the way performers at Fox form their recitation points:

Trump says Justice Department is investigating Ilhan Omar

[...]

According to financial disclosures filed last year, Omar’s net worth principally increased due to her spouse—and not her work with the government. She disclosed her spouse having stakes worth collectively between $6 million and $30 million in a venture capital firm and a winery.

Members of Congress’ and their spouses’ sources of income and assets are traditionally disclosed in broad ranges, not as a specific dollar amount.

The holdings in question are those of Omar's husband of six years, Tim Mynett. Given the way such holdings are disclosed in official congressional reports, Omar reported that the holdings are worth something between $6 million and $30 million.

On Fox, that "rounds off" to $30 million (full stop!), with Mynett going unmentioned. Here's a fuller passage from a report by Newsweek:

Ilhan Omar’s Net Worth Under Scrutiny

[...]

The publicly available documents showed that for several years, Omar had relatively modest personal wealth, and debts including student loans and credit cards. For 2022 and 2023, her net worth was listed as below $250,000.

The shift in wealth in 2024 largely came from businesses tied to Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, a former political consultant. The first, eStCru LLC, a California winery, was listed as worth between $1 million and $5 million, while Rose Lake Capital, a venture capital firm, was listed as worth between $5 million and $25 million.

Omar noted that she had an income of between $5,000 and $15,000 from the winery, and nothing from the venture capital firm.

The Minnesota Democrat married Mynett in 2020, but at the time his companies were not given such high value, in part due to lawsuits being fought around alleged fraud. Once settlements were reached, both companies saw a big jump in their worth.

Jumping to December [2025], amid renewed scrutiny of fraud in Minnesota within the Somali community, Omar’s finances are back under the spotlight. No evidence has emerged connecting Omar's finances to the fraud schemes.

According to Newsweek, "no evidence has emerged connecting Omar's finances to" fraud. Under current arrangements, where no evidence exists, insinuation will follow!

How much is Rep. Omar worth? Her husband's holdings may be worth as little as $6 million, or they may be worth $30 million. 

On Fox, that translates to the higher figure. Presumably, the president embellished from there.