共和党对反穆斯林偏见愈发视而不见

The GOP’s increasing blind eye to anti-Muslim bigotry

Analysis by Aaron Blake
32 min ago
PUBLISHED Mar 11, 2026, 3:15 PM ET

Over the past year, a trio of House Republicans have said “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” labeled Muslim congresswomen “terrorists,” expressed a preference for dogs over Muslims, told now-New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” because he ate rice with his hands, and said that Muslims “breed their way through our society.”

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, added to his increasingly xenophobic recent commentary two weeks ago by advocating for sending two Muslim congresswomen “back from where they came.”

In the past, Republicans have picked their spots when rebuking these kinds of comments.

But increasingly, it appears GOP leaders have largely given up policing them — at least publicly.

And they’ve largely given up even as some members of their party appear increasingly concerned about another form of bigotry taking hold on the political right: antisemitism.

The trio here — Reps. Randy Fine of Florida, Brandon Gill of Texas and Andy Ogles of Tennessee — have spoken in unvarnished and bigoted terms about Muslims.

The most recent entry is Ogles’ Monday post on X that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”

In the two days since that post, GOP leaders have largely sought to avoid the issue publicly. Their reluctance to police it was perhaps most evident in the strained comments of two House leaders: Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

“I’ve spoken to those members, and all members as I always do, about our tone and our message and what we say,” Johnson said when asked about the matter Tuesday. He added: “We respect everyone’s beliefs and their right to live out their beliefs and to speak freely about their beliefs, and have that conviction.”

But then the Louisiana Republican expounded at length about the dangers of Sharia law, which he claimed “animates this.”

“The language that people use — it’s different language than I would use, but I think that’s a serious issue,” he said.

“When you seek to come to a country and not assimilate, but to impose Sharia law — Sharia law is in conflict with the US Constitution — that is that conflict that people are talking about,” Johnson said. “It is not about people as Muslims; it’s about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution.”

But Ogles’ comments didn’t say anything about Sharia law; he called out all Muslims.

Republicans have for much of the 21st century raised the prospect of Muslim immigrants trying to implement Sharia law in the United States, but there is little evidence to back up their claims.

Emmer also strained mightily to avoid dealing with the breadth and implications of what Ogles said.

In comments to PBS NewsHour’s Lisa Desjardins, Emmer focused on criticizing people who he said declined to assimilate to American culture, who commit fraud and who believe in radical ideology.

After Desjardins pressed him repeatedly on Ogles’ claim, Emmer ultimately seemed to suggest some Muslims were “good people.”

“I think Muhammad Ali. I think (former NFL player and TV host) Ahmad Rashad,” Emmer eventually said, according to Politico. “I think we’ve got plenty of examples of good people.”

There were a few Republicans who expressed more direct opposition to Ogles’ post, as Desjardins reported. Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida called it “inappropriate” and Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama added, “I don’t agree with that.” And Trump administration official Richard Grenell told Ogles on X: “Stop attacking the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

But the prevailing message from the top of the GOP seemed to be that they were giving Ogles room.

And the lack of a rebuke appears to have left Ogles unbowed. He posted again late Tuesday, “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back.”

It’s a replay of what happened less than a month ago when Fine posted, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

(He said he was responding to a post from a pro-Palestinian activist about dogs being “unclean.” The activist said that post was a joke.)

As the New York Times’ Annie Karni and others noted, GOP leaders didn’t have much to say about that, either. (One notable exception on the right was Megyn Kelly, who called Fine’s post bigoted.)

A few days later, the Florida Republican introduced legislation called the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act.”

Perhaps the most telling recent example of this dynamic of GOP leaders giving a pass to anti-Muslim rhetoric, though, came after Trump’s State of the Union address.

After Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — the two congresswoman Fine has labeled “terrorists” — heckled Trump during his speech, the president posted on social media that “we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible.” (He apparently meant sending them back to where they came from. Omar is from Somalia, but Tlaib was born in Detroit, and both are American citizens.)

When Trump made a similar “go back” comment in 2019 — apparently about Tlaib, Omar and other progressive women of color in Congress — it was a major scandal.

And it was met with huge rebukes, including from Republicans — some of whom even cast it as racist.

This time, Republicans have said basically nothing about it publicly — just as they’ve largely ignored Trump’s increasingly xenophobic comments about Somali immigrants.

“I don’t want them in our country,” he’s said. “Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country.”

It’s often hard for Republicans to rebuke a president who so dominates their political movement. But not doing so risks emboldening others on the right to say similarly bigoted things, about Muslims or others.

And Republicans don’t seem to have a lot to say, even as these kinds of comments proliferate.