Jana Shortal, a news anchor from Minneapolis, is going viral after she nearly burst into tears responding to President Donald Trump’s statement about not wanting Somalis in the United States, many of whom are here illegally. Shortal has worked as a journalist for KARE 11 news for almost two decades now, moving up the ranks from a general reporter to the host of Breaking the News. She’s also an outspoken member of the LGBTQ+ community, just to provide additional background details.
Shortal kicked off her mini-monologue by making the claim that the overwhelming majority of Somalis in the Minneapolis area are American citizens who originally fled their home countries as a means of escaping war-torn areas to start a new life. “The vast majority of Somali folks here are American citizens,” Shortal said as she stared into the camera, already beginning to become emotional.
“They are people who fled war in their country as refugees to start a new life,” the anchor continued. She then chastised modern America for supposedly wandering away from its claims to be a nation of immigrants, calling attention to the message on the Statue of Liberty that calls for the people of the world to come here to gain freedom. Conveniently, however, she leaves off the part that nowhere in this message does it say it’s appropriate to travel to the United States illegally or to allow our borders to be left wide open for anyone who wants to come in.
“Once upon a time, that was a story America like to tell about itself,” Shortal added. She continued by saying, “Hell, it’s emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.’ To breathe free.”
The KARE 11 anchor then goes on to state that thousands of residents in Minnesota cannot “breathe free” and are likely terrified, even those with legal status, because President Trump said he didn’t want Somalis in the country, complaining that he called them “garbage.”
“Minnesotans, by the thousands, cannot tonight [breathe free], perhaps sitting in fear, even with legal status, and that their president called them garbage,” Shortal concluded. The comment the anchor referred to in her monologue was made by the president as he wrapped up a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“You know, our country’s at a tipping point. We could go bad. We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know if people mind me saying that, but I’m saying it,” Trump went on to say at the time, according to ABC News. “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
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President Trump also used the phrase to describe Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who is Somalian, leading to Omar replying to the president on social media, saying his “obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he needs.” A number of folks also got on social media platform X where they flayed Shortal’s opinion on Somalis.
“They all claim their country is better than ours, they all say that they have more freedoms in their country than they do here, so why are they all staying here? That’s the question,” one commenter wrote. Another pointed out, “The US didn’t have welfare in 1885 when it received the Statue of Liberty.”
A third user blistered Shortal, writing, “Why do they ALL look like Rachel MadCow? Guess what, Ms Shortal , if the USA took in every person from every war torn country, the USA would not exist any more. We don’t have the resources and they don’t assimilate. The statue was appropriate for that period of our history, but not applicable now, honey! Btw, how many refugees have you got living in your home now? I think we know…… ZERO! …. Cry more, hypocrite.”
Featured image: screenshot from embedded video