‘What grown man talks like this?’: Meet Florida’s up-and-coming senator, who is a bona fide swamp monster

The trouble with sequels is, how do you increase the stakes? That’s why so many movie franchises jump the shark by stuffing themselves full of outlandish characters and/or OTT villains in an attempt to up the ante. As we enter Donald Trump’s second term of office, it seems the real-world is suffering from sequel-itis, too, as this cruel, unfeeling universe of ours tries to keep things fresh by introducing ever more egregiously offensive acolytes for our orange overlord.

Case in point, meet Randy Fine. The recently elected Florida senator has now helped himself stand out from the sea of reprobate Republican politicians who are already out there with a brazen bit of hate speech blithely posted on social media. Say what you like about their kind, and we frequently do, but even Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert might think twice before making jokes about openly threatening Muslim congresswomen.

Fine (by name, but not by nature) is running for Florida’s Sixth Congressional District, after its current representative Mike Waltz had to resign following Trump nominating him for National Security Advisor. As a Jewish man, Fine was unsurprisingly championed for the gig by the Republican Jewish Coalition, but it was his reaction to the endorsement that was wholly unexpected.

Dubbing himself the “Hebrew Hammer,” Fine encouraged Muslim congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to resign before he enters the chamber or… Well, it’s unclear what he was implying. All we know is he wrapped up his shocking message with the hashtag “#bombsaway.”

A politician making such a tasteless attempt at humor as he goes about building up his platform to enter Congress is leaving X users stunned. Which, honestly, is pretty much a constant state of mind these days, but still. “Are you a 13 year old boy?” one critic quizzed. “What grown man talks like this? Gross.”

“This post is inexcusable coming from a grown man running for office,” stressed another.

Someone else summed up Fine’s reprehensible tweet in one damning sentence. “This is embarrassing for your state and our country,” they declared.

Rashisa Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are the only two Muslim women to serve as members of Congress, with Tlaib being the only person in Congress to be of Palestinian descent. Both have been critical of Israel since the conflict with Gaza began, with Tlaib, in particular, coming under flak from the House for her views. Just over a year ago, she was censured for allegedly “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

Although a new name to some people, it probably won’t come as a surprise that Fine has a history of saying the dumbest stuff this side of MTG’s X account. His most notable headline-grabbing utterance before now came back in April 2022 when he claimed that a peaceful Democratic protect on the House floor was “far worse” than the January 6 insurrection. We wait with trepidation to see if Fine is going to be a major character in this sequel or not as we press play on The Donald Trump Presidency 2: Project 2025 Boogaloo.