'Alarming': Analyst flags a 'vile passion project' growing within the GOP

An analyst on Tuesday flagged an "alarming" rise in attacks on Muslim Americans and the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric growing within the Republican Party.

The Bulwark's Joe Perticone called out Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), who has been "proudly anti-Muslim" and has made comments against Muslims, including this statement during a Newsmax interview last month: “I think mainstream Islam is a threat to the United States.”

Fine's comments represent a more significant shift among the GOP.

"Almost a decade removed from President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban Muslims from entering the country during his first term—a vile passion project that has been given new life in his second presidency—a growing number of House and Senate Republicans are taking Islamophobia to a new level, actively calling for discrimination against Muslims and even arguing that some should be denaturalized and deported from the United States," Perticone wrote.

Fine is not alone. Current Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who has planned a run for state governor, has also made similar remarks and called Islam "a cult" and that people practicing the faith are "here to conquer."

Fine has also signaled that he will consider a resolution draft to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from her role in Congress in 2026, and told Axios: “I don’t think she should be a citizen, let alone a member of Congress."

"If this were all Fine had said about Islam in public, it would be a grotesque, alarming problem," Perticone added. "But this is just a sampling of the man’s pronouncements about a two–billion–person religious community. Fine posts about Islam, a lot. Since November, he’s posted the word 'Muslim' more than 50 times from his official account on X. That tally includes promotions of cable news interviews he’s done and random musings about this perceived threat of people who worship differently from him."

Republican Randa Fahmy, a Muslim who served as associate deputy secretary of energy in the George W. Bush Administration, described how Fine's comments could come back to haunt him — and that Florida has a large Muslim population.

“Sometimes, you just have to follow the money and try to figure out where his funding might be coming from, and maybe that’s what’s motivating him, but it’s certainly not his constituency,” Fahmy told The Bulwark. “And if I were him, I’d be a little worried in the sixth district of Florida if he’s saying things like that. There’s a healthy Muslim-American community there who vote. They voted for President Bush in the year 2000. They rallied for President Trump again. So I just would be very careful if I were him saying what he said he wants to stay in Congress—maybe he doesn’t.”