Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted the claim on X on August 7, days after Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim candidate, won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.
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She added in the same post: “We refuse to be silent.”
The backlash was immediate. Representative Pramila Jayapal called the remarks “absolutely disgusting and dangerous,” writing that “Republicans must denounce this blatant Islamophobia.” She added, “To Muslim communities across America: I will always stand with you.”
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California state Senate candidate Scott Wiener wrote that Mace was “on yet another bender demonizing Muslims and advocating to strip them of full citizenship,” calling her “a vile person.”
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Mace did not back down. Replying to Jayapal, she wrote, “Islam must be confronted and Islam must be removed from civil society in the US.”
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Days later, she appeared on CNN, where anchor Omar Jimenez pressed her on whether she was branding an entire faith as dangerous. “Uhh, and that’s not what I said,” Mace responded, before going on to name New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and El-Sayed as examples of what she called a threat.
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Jimenez pointed to the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom and noted that Mamdani and other Muslim officials were “elected by American citizens.” Mace also invoked an unnamed imam she described as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center b*mbing to justify her position.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the rhetoric “puts a target on the back of Muslim elected officials.”