Democrats are demanding that Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida) resign or face disciplinary action after making an anti-Muslim social media post in which he suggested that he would choose dogs over Muslims.
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine said in a post Sunday on X, which he wrote in response to comments by a leader of a pro-Palestinian group about dog owners not cleaning up after their pets on New York City streets. Fine defended his comments during a television interview Tuesday.
In response, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said Tuesday that Fine is “an Islamophobic, disgusting and unrepentant bigot.”
Jeffries said it is “unacceptable” that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other House Republicans have not forcefully criticized Fine, who has a history in his short tenure in Congress of making Islamophobic comments.
Fine needs to be held “accountable,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries said House Democrats “will not let the racist and bigoted behavior of Randy Fine go unchecked” and suggested the party could take disciplinary action if they take over control over the chamber in the November midterms “if not sooner.”
Several House Democrats have called for Fine to resign or be disciplined by Republicans, who currently hold a narrow majority in the House.
“This is genuinely one of the most disgusting statements I have ever seen issued by an American official,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said on X. “It should not stop shocking us that the Republican Party openly embraces this. Fine should be censured & stripped of committees. To ignore this is to accept and normalize it.”
Spokespeople for Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Fine’s remarks and Democratic demands to discipline him.
Fine made his initial post in response to a comment made by activist Nerdeen Kiswani, who on Feb. 12 said on X that New York City was “coming to Islam” because many New Yorkers were complaining about how dog owners in the city were not cleaning after their pets and leaving behind dog poop all over the sidewalks.
“Dogs definitely have a place in society, just not as indoor pets,” Kiswani said Feb. 12. “Like we’ve said all along, they are unclean.”
Kiswani, who co-founded the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime, said on the same X thread that she was joking.
“It’s obviously a joke,” Kiswani said on X about her original post. “I don’t care if you have a dog, I do care if your dog is [pooping] everywhere and you’re not cleaning it.”
In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Kiswani said she was “really shocked by the reaction” her post drew, saying that her comments were “just part of a local New York City discourse.” Kiswani noted that outlets such as the New York Post have written about New Yorkers’ complaints about the uptick in dog poop being left behind.
“A lot of people, including city council members, were just criticizing people bringing dogs into grocery stores and stuff like that,” she said. “So, you know, I made a quick joke about [it].”
Fine resigning, Kiswani said, “is the bare minimum.”
“Censuring is not enough,” she said, adding that Democrats should “match their actions with their words” and not just “make this call on Twitter.”
Kiswani’s explanation on X appeared not to sway Fine, who said in an interview with Newsmax that his post “was in response to a major Muslim leader saying dogs should be forbidden from New York City because to some Muslims, it bothers them.”
“Well, if they’re going to make us choose between our dogs and them going home, the choice is easy,” Fine said, doubling down.
Fine, who arrived in Congress last year after winning a special election, has drawn criticism for other anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian comments.
In July, he said Gazans should “starve away” until Israeli hostages were released.
In December, Fine calledfor the mass expulsion of Muslims from the United States.
“It is time for a Muslim travel ban, radical deportations of all mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants, and citizenship revocations wherever possible,” Fine posted on social media at the time. “Mainstream Muslims have declared war on us. The least we can do is kick them the hell out of America.”
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