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Good afternoon, Press Pass readers. It’s a short week because of the Christmas holiday, but Press Pass will be back when Congress returns to session in January. It’s going to be a wild year on the Hill. If you want to stay up to date with it all, hop on a free 30-day trial for a Bulwark+ membership. That will get you through the next month at no cost. If you stick around after that, your yearlong subscription will carry you through next fall’s midterms and beyond. What a deal! Sign up at the link below.
Today’s edition is about how and why some GOP lawmakers have latched on to bigotry to advance their personal and political goals—and no longer feel the need to dog-whistle it. Republicans have traditionally distinguished between radical and mainstream Islam, emphasizing that the overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world want peace and stability for themselves and their families, like anybody else. But lately, some GOPers have taken a sharp turn by explicitly discriminating against regular, law-abiding Muslim Americans. The racism is snowballing on Capitol Hill; I spoke with a Muslim Republican to get a bit of perspective on it all.
In addition, if you want to understand the next phases of the Epstein Files saga, I’ve got you covered. It’s starting to look like it could take up even more of Congress’s already limited work schedule in the new year. Lastly, I read a lot of Substacks and, as the year comes to an end, I wanted to share with you all my favorite ones—besides The Bulwark, obviously.
A Green Light for Anti-Islam Bigotry for Trump’s GOP
Congressional Republicans are openly attacking Muslim Americans.
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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.
Foremost among the proudly anti-Muslim politicians is Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.).
“I think mainstream Islam is not compatible,” Fine said in a November Newsmax interview when asked by host Todd Starnes if Muslims can coexist with the Constitution. “I think mainstream Islam is a threat to the United States.”
“The left is rooted in a belief that all cultures are equal, that we’re all good people, that we can sit and talk through our problems, that we all share the same values. And that is not true,” Fine said last week in another Newsmax appearance. “There is evil in this world. Mainstream Islam, as we saw on October 7th, as we’ve seen in Syria, as we’ve seen in Nigeria—it lionizes and it glorifies death. That’s what they celebrate.”
Fine has also posted his views on X:
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In another post attacking a speech by his House colleague, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is a practicing Muslim, Fine wrote: “This is the ugly face of Islam in America. Believe them when they say they are just getting started. ItR