Trump slams Omar, calls her remarks ‘disgrace to’ US

US President Donald Trump takes fresh aim at congresswoman Ilhan Omar who has said she would "continue to be a nightmare to” him.

Omar, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, said Thursday that “his nightmare is seeing the beautiful mosaic fabric of our country welcome someone like me as their member of Congress.”

Trump, who was speaking to reporters on Friday, said what Omar has said was “a disgrace to our country."

"I'm unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, 'I'm going to be the president's nightmare,'" he added. "She's going to be the president's nightmare. She's lucky to be where she is, let me tell you. And the things that she has said are a disgrace to our country."

Trump triggered a firestorm this week after he had tweeted that the four progressive members of the US House of Representatives, known as “the squad,” should “go back” where they came from, even though all are US citizens and three are US-born.

Omar, one of the four, was born in Somalia and immigrated to the US as a refugee in 1995 when she was a child. She became a US citizen in 2000 at age 17.

The other three members are Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

When asked on Friday that whether the backlash resulting from his comments would impact him politically, he said he did not care.

"I don’t know if it’s good or bad politically. I don’t care," Trump said, "Many people say it's good. I don't know if it's good or bad," he continued.

Trump's attacks have widely been seen as a bid to rally his right-wing base as the 2020 White House race heats up -- at the risk of inflaming racial tensions and deepening partisan divisions in America.