Barack Obama: “I wanted to just say how much I appreciate you, because you saved my mother's life, because my mother had a stroke.”

The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views.

Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.

If I had a blame pie for why politics is so polarised and why we're seeing a rise of populism in many places, it's because of that information that is going into our brains every day.

And I will fight for that, even if I don’t always think it’s going to win.