Chris Kelley (shown above right), who announced he’s aiming for the congressional seat held by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) (above left), slammed the progressive lawmaker for abandoning her Minnesota constituents — and referred to her as an “absentee landlord.”

Related: Omar: ‘I’m Controversial Because People Seem to Want the Controversy’

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Kelley, who currently works as an officer for the Minneapolis Police Department and was a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Army and Army Reserves, made the comments during an interview on Thursday morning on “Fox & Friends: First.”

He explained that as a police officer, he has the ability to talk to people as he works the streets.

And they don’t like what they’re seeing from Omar.

Whether it’s people within her Somali community or “just everybody else I come in contact with,” Kelley believes the people of her district have grown tired of Omar’s acting like a rock star instead of working for the people.

“She’s traveling the world. She’s fighting the president on Twitter. She’s not doing anything in the district,” Kelley said, relaying complaints from the people he’d like to represent.

“And, I can say firsthand, the homelessness, the opioid problems, and other issues aren’t improving.”

Kelley also took Omar and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to task for using political intimidation tactics to try to prevent a rally for President Donald Trump at the Target Center in Minnesota.

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Frey managed to get the facility to charge the president’s campaign $530,000 for security — when former President Barack Obama was only charged $20,000.

“Both [Frey] and Ilhan Omar are speaking against the president coming here today [meaning Thursday] and I think that will embolden certain groups to come out and to try and cause problems,” Kelley explained.

Kelley also noted on Twitter that the two Democratic officials are putting officers in danger by “weaponizing citizen safety for political reasons.”

“It is frustrating. We should welcome any sitting president coming here,” Kelley continued.

“We’ve welcomed other presidents with open arms and now because there’s a disagreement or we have a president across a different aisle, there’s an issue here. So I believe we should disagree with dignity.”

Omar and Frye are significantly lacking in the dignity department, in our view.

Kelley originally announced his plans to challenge Omar this past summer, saying he was motivated to run after he saw her comments at a meeting with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

In those comments, she dismissed the 9/11 terror attacks by referring to them with the words, “Some people did something.”

“September 11 was a terrible loss of life, not just for police officers and firefighters and other first responders — but 3,000 people and non-combatants died, and to be dismissive of that was an outrage,” Kelley said.

As for the political race, the Iraq War veteran thinks he has a solid chance to win.

“You’re going to have a lot of people coming out, and I think we have an excellent chance of coming out on top,” he said during the interview.

Omar, according to most recent polls, has a negative approval rating.

This piece originally appeared in The Political Insider and is used by permission.

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