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center for international policy
'Vile and Un-American': Tuberville Blasted for Demanding Mass Expulsion of Muslims
Republican Senator from Alabama, said one critic, is "unfit for public office and should face censure and removal."
Dec 15, 2025
A Republican senator is getting blasted for a bigoted social media rant in which he declared that Islam is "not a religion" while advocating the mass expulsion of Muslims from the US.
In the wake of Sunday's horrific mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia, which left 16 people dead and was carried out by two men with suspected ties to the terrorist organization ISIS, Tuberville lashed out at Muslims and promoted their mass deportation.
"Islam is not a religion," Tuberville, currently a Republican candidate for Alabama governor, wrote on X. "It's a cult. Islamists aren't here to assimilate. They're here to conquer. Stop worrying about offending the pearl clutchers. We've got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we'll become the United Caliphate of America."
Tuberville neglected to note that a Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed, a Syrian refugee who gained his Australian citizenship in 2022, tackled and disarmed one of the alleged shooters before they could fire more shots at the Jewish people who had gathered on Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah.
Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that Tuberville's comments on Muslims were akin to those made by former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, an infamous segregationist who fought the US federal government's efforts to racially integrate state schools.
"Senator Tuberville appears to have looked at footage of George Wallace standing in a schoolhouse door to keep Black students out and decided that was a model worth reviving—this time against Muslims,” Saylor said. “His rhetoric belongs to the same shameful chapter of American history, and it will be taught that way.”
Tuberville was also condemned by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who hammered the Republican senator for using an attack on Jews in Australia to justify prejudice against Muslims in the US.
"An outrageous, disgusting display of islamophobia from Sen. Tuberville," wrote Schumer. "The answer to despicable antisemitism is not despicable islamophobia. This type of rhetoric is beneath a United States senator—or any good citizen for that matter."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), meanwhile, described Tuberville's rant as "vile and un-American," and said that his "bigoted zealotry" against Muslims would have made America's founders "cringe."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said Tuberville's rhetoric was completely at odds with the US Constitution.
"This is a senator calling for religious purges in the United States," he wrote. "A country whose earliest colonists came fleeing religious persecution and whose Founders thought that protecting against state interference with religion was so important it was put into the First Amendment."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, noted that Tuberville was far from alone in expressing open bigotry toward Muslims, as US Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino had also made vicious anti-Muslim statements in recent days.
"A congressman says mainstream Muslims should be 'destroyed,'" he wrote. "A senator says Islam is not a religion and Muslims should be sent 'home.' A NYC councilwoman calls for the 'expulsion' and 'denaturalization' of Muslims. Fascist anti-Muslim bigotry is now explicit Republican policy."
Williams also said Tuberville was "unfit for public office and should face censure and removal."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for US congress in Missouri, countered Tuberville with just two sentences: "Islam is a religion. Tommy Tuberville is an unrepentant racist."
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'Wow': Observers Surprised After Dem Moderate Rejects AIPAC Cash
"AIPAC's brand is increasingly, perhaps irredeemably toxic," wrote one observer.
Oct 16, 2025
A centrist Democratic lawmaker on Thursday surprised many political observers when he announced he would be returning donations he'd received from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who is running a primary challenge against Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), said that he was rejecting donations from AIPAC because it had aligned itself too closely with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last year was accused of committing crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
"I'm a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC's mission is to back that government," Moulton said in a social media post. "I don't support that direction."
As flagged by New York Times reporter Annie Karni, Moulton is now the fourth Democratic lawmaker who once received heavy support from AIPAC to reject their donations, following Reps. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), Deborah Ross (D-NC), and Valerie Foushee (D-NC).
Hamid Bendaas, communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, observed in a post on X that Moulton appeared to be ignoring advice given by a prominent Democratic consultant over the summer to not focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict because polls showed it wasn't important to voters.
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, argued that Moulton's rejection of AIPAC cash showed how far the organization's reputation with the electorate has fallen over the past several years.
"AIPAC is now so toxic to Democratic voters that support from it is widely seen as a political liability," he wrote. "The NRA-ization of AIPAC is nearly complete."
Ishaan Tharoor, a Washington Post global affairs columnist, also reflected on how much AIPAC's brand has been damaged over the last two years of war in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 68,000 Palestinians.
"There was a time when people would refer to AIPAC as the gold standard in lobbying," he wrote. "So many in India and the Indian diaspora have talked about a future 'Indian AIPAC' one day influencing US politics in similar fashion. But AIPAC's brand is increasingly, perhaps irredeemably toxic."
Journalist Ryan Grim had a one-word reaction to Moulton's rejection of AIPAC cash: "Wow."
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Trump-Netanyahu Joint Remarks Ripped as 'Litany of Lies... Not a Promising Foundation for Peace'
One critic noted Trump's plan for Gaza "contains numerous opportunities for Netanyahu to renege on his commitments, as he has repeatedly done in the past."
Sep 29, 2025
US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a peace plan to end the war in Gaza—but many critics were skeptical that anything good would come from it.
The plan, which the White House released on Monday, requires Hamas to return all remaining Israeli hostages it took in the October 7, 2023 attacks in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli custody.
The plan also mandates that Hamas have no role in governing Gaza after the war, as responsibility for running the exclave would be handed over on a temporary basis to "a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza."
Notably, the Trump proposal dropped previous demands he'd made about expelling Palestinians from their land, and it stated that "no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return." The plan also says that "Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza," even though Netanyahu and his government for months have said they intend to take full control of Gaza.
The plan drew some immediate criticism from skeptics, however.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), attacked the Trump plan for not being a serious proposal to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
"Trump and Netanyahu’s remarks today were a litany of lies about the last 30 years, not a promising foundation for peace," Duss said. "Despite his claim of being close to a deal, Trump's statement that Israel will have 'full US backing' to 'finish the job' in Gaza if his plan is not agreed to stood out most clearly. This would be more of what we have seen not only the last nine months, but the last two years, as the United States has unconditionally armed and subsidized a genocide in Gaza."
Duss welcomed Trump seemingly taking the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza off the table as part of his plan, but added that it also "contains numerous opportunities for Netanyahu to renege on his commitments, as he has repeatedly done in the past."
Drop Site News' Ryan Grim appeared equally skeptical that the Trump plan would hold up, and he wrote in a post on X he's waiting to see "what Netanyahu does to scuttle the deal once he leaves the White House."
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, observed in a social media post that Trump had successfully pressured Netanyahu to apologize to the government of Qatar for launching an attack against Hamas leaders on its soil earlier this month.
"That Netanyahu was forced to apologize to the emir of Qatar by phone from the White House with Trump in the room shows the leverage that the US has over Israel when it chooses to," he wrote. "Too often it chooses otherwise. It could've chosen not to support the genocide in the first place."
Drop Site News reported shortly after the deal was announced that the governments of Qatar and Egypt have given it to Hamas, which said it would study the proposal.
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