Trump backs staunchly anti-Muslim Florida legislator to run for US election | Donald Trump News

US President-elect Donald Trump is encouraging a Florida congressman who celebrated the killing of an American citizen by Israeli forces to run for Congress.

Trump said in a social media post on Sunday that if State Senator Randy Fine decides to seek a congressional seat in Florida, the state attorney will have “full and complete approval”.

Fine, who has a long history of anti-Muslim rhetoric, sparked outrage earlier this year when he appeared to praise the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, an American activist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the West Bank.

“Throw stones, get shot. One less #MuslimTerror is. #FireAway,” Fine wrote on social media in September.

Eygi was part of a peaceful protest when he was shot. Both Israel and the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden dismissed his killing as an accident.

Fine’s post – which X (formerly of Twitter) found violated the violent speech policy – is part of a long list of offensive, anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic comments made by the state legislature.

“It’s a good friend of a person without fascism,” Rasha Mubarak, a Palestinian-American activist from Florida, told Al Jazeera.

“Trump’s approval shows the depth of alignment with violent, fascist elements within the capitalist class, whose interests are served by sowing division and furthering imperialism.”

Fine often declares that the US has a “Muslim problem”. In 2021, when told by a social media user that Palestinians were being forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israelis, he responded: “#BlowThemUp”.

According to the Council on American Muslim Relations (CAIR), he also sent a cryptic message to a Florida resident saying: “Go blow yourself up!”

Two years earlier, Fine called Jews who supported Palestinian rights “Judenrat” – Nazi collaborators.

Last year, Fine asserted that fear of Muslims is justified.

“Although most Muslims are not terrorists, they are radicals, not ordinary people,” he wrote on the website X. “Now is the time to speak the truth, let’s not bathe in political correctness that will kill us.”

Fine’s office did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Over the years, CAIR has called on Florida lawmakers to censure and punish Fine, including his recent comments about Eygi’s murder.

“We have trouble thinking of a time in modern American history when an elected official publicly celebrated the killing of an American by a foreign government and encouraged such killing,” CAIR deputy executive director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in May.

“Randy Fine has made it clear where his priorities are, and that’s not the case with the American people. We urge the Florida House of Representatives to rebuke him for this un-American hate speech.”

Despite celebrating the killing of an American woman by foreign forces, Trump described Fine as an “America First Patriot”.

He asked to run for Congressman Mike Waltz, who will leave his seat to work in the White House as a national security adviser.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will call a special election to fill the vacancy next year.

Fine, who served in the Florida House of Representatives and was recently elected to the state Senate, has not yet announced his candidacy, but he welcomed Trump’s statement.

“It would be an honor in my life to be one of your soldiers,” he wrote addressing the future president. “Your confidence is high and I will have news to share soon!”

Trump himself has been spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, including saying that the Quran, Islam’s holy book, teaches “the worst” and declaring that “Islam hates us”.

He also imposed a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries during his first term as president.

But this year, the former president calmed down as he appealed to Arab and Muslim voters, promising to bring “peace” to the Middle East.

Trump’s support of Fine and his other staunchly pro-Israel cabinet picks highlight the depth of his alliance with right-wing forces.