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FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., is using President Donald Trump’s State of the Union to send a message to critics of an X post he made about choosing “between dogs and Muslims.”
Fine’s guest to Trump’s primetime address will be his father, Alan Fine, along with his father’s seeing-eye service dog, Sadie.
“I think it’s also important, given the issues that I burst into the public consciousness last week, to talk about the importance of our dogs as Americans,” Fine told Fox News Digital on Monday. “My father’s seeing-eye dog is part of our family and allows him to live his life, and I’m going to fight like hell against anyone who wants to take it away.”
The dog will be outfitted with a shirt that reads, “Don’t tread on me,” which has become Fine’s rallying cry against the outpouring of rage from Democrats over his controversial X post.
Last week, Fine shared a screenshot from X of Palestinian Muslim activist Nerdeen Kiswani writing, “Finally, NYC is coming to Islam. Dogs definitely have a place in society, just not as indoor pets. Like we’ve said all along, they are unclean.”
Fine wrote on the platform in response, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
It prompted an outpouring of criticism from House Democrats, with calls ranging from a censure to Fine’s outright ouster from Congress.
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., posted on X, “House Democrats will not let the racist and bigoted behavior of Randy Fine go unchecked. Accountability is coming to all of these sick extremists when the gavels change hands in November, if not sooner.”
The Florida Republican responded to the criticism by questioning the lack of widespread outrage when a member of the House Democratic Caucus, nonvoting Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I., was found to have been texting Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing, and when Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., was accused of misusing COVID-19 pandemic funds.
“I think the same people that don’t have a problem with a member of Congress texting Jeffrey Epstein, the same members of Congress who don’t have a problem with a member who stole $5 million of money that was supposed to go to people suffering from natural disasters … somehow have a problem with a member of Congress who says Americans have a right to have a dog and if people don’t like it, they can leave,” Fine said. “So they can shove it.”
Kiswani has since posted that her initial comment was meant to be a joke and called Fine’s X post “genocidal.”
But he has dug in since then, even introducing a resolution to Congress called the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act.”
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His father, Alan Fine, said he was eager to see his son on the House floor as a member of Congress.
“I’m actually more excited to be here to watch my son,” he said. “More to see him than the president, to be quite honest. I guess that’s because I’m a Jewish father.”
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