Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) defended his past controversial comments when confronted by CNN’s Sara Sidner, arguing that it was just “fiery rhetoric” or done over “private text messages” and therefore not a “call for violence.”

Fine’s defense of his comments is not completely accurate.

Fine was recently elected to Congress after his predecessor, Mike Waltz, resigned to take the role of President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser (a position Waltz has since left in the wake of the SignalGate scandal). In a special election held on April 1, Fine defeated his Democratic opponent by roughly 14 points, but that was far short of how Waltz and Trump had previously performed in that district. Fine’s struggles to reassure House Republicans he would comfortably win the seat led to Trump withdrawing Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) nomination for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

The congressman has an abundant share of critics all along the political spectrum. At one time he carried the water for some of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial bills, but the relationship between the two devolved into a bitter feud. Fine has a long history of divisive comments that have drawn condemnation from the left and right, and has been called out by local media and constituents in his district for not living there.

Fine was on Monday morning’s edition of CNN News Central in the wake of the arrest of Vance Boelter for allegedly shooting two Democratic Minnesota legislators and their spouses, killing former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman and seriously wounding State Rep. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman. The shootings have been described by authorities as “politically motivated” and police said that Boelter had created a handwritten “hit list” of more than 70 targets, including abortion providers and numerous Democrats in the state legislature and Congress.

“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he will meet with congressional leaders from both parties this week to discuss heightened security for lawmakers after the politically motivated shootings in Minnesota, calling the violence a, quote, ‘wake up call,'” said Sidner before introducing Fine and asking him what he thought about Jeffries’ comments and if he would “vote to grant more security for all members of Congress?”

“I don’t agree with Hakeem Jeffries on much, Sara, but on this I do,” replied Fine, mentioning that he “had two people arrested, prosecuted, and locked up for making death threats against me and my family” when he was in the Florida legislature, so he understands this “threat.”

“We do need to provide more security for legislators,” he added. “It’s absolutely needed.”

“I do want to talk to you about some of the rhetoric, because there’s a lot of talk about rhetoric and how this gins people up,” said Sidner. “A few years ago, you were called out for calling a school board member a whore in a text. You’ve called one of your congressional colleagues a terrorist. Are you part of the problem here?”

“Well, look, I think what people write in private text messages to each other is one thing,” said Fine. “If I had said that in a public message, I’d understand. But, but I do think there are issues. Look, when we have protests on Saturday, calling something ‘no kings’ when Donald Trump isn’t a king, he’s been elected overwhelmingly by the American people, and it’s compared to the Revolution. I mean, that is a call for violence, when people are waving signs that say, ’86 47.’ I think we’ve heard this discussion about taking down the temperature after President Trump was assassinated twice, and I don’t think people are getting the message. So this is real, it’s a concern –”

(Presumably, Fine meant to say that there were two attempted assassinations against Trump, not that he was “assassinated twice.”)

“Are you not getting the message, too?” asked Sidner. “To be fair — is it fair to say that the way that you speak to your colleagues, the — what you say about them and the fiery rhetoric that you also use, is also an issue, that you’re thinking about maybe changing?”

“It’s a fair point, but I think ‘fiery rhetoric’ is different than a call for violence,” replied Fine. “Calling evil for what it is, calling danger for what it is, is acceptable. It’s when you cross that line and you say, ‘and that person should be killed.’ That’s never a line that I’ve crossed, nor do I think it should be done. But we saw that, we saw that kind of rhetoric just on Saturday at these protests. And I think that is a problem. We’ve seen it repeatedly with President Trump for years, and I do think it’s a problem. And the problem is these people are crazy. This guy in Minnesota, he’s going to turn out to be crazy. And when crazy people hear these things, these problems, these problems do well up.”

“That’s something that the courts will have to determine,” said Sidner. “Obviously, in looking at his history, his friends and family certainly do not think that.”

Last month, Fine quoted a tweet by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) that accused Israel’s government of “starving Gaza to death,” calling it a “war crime” and “genocide.”

“Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender,” wrote Fine to Tlaib. “Until then, #StarveAway.”

Fine blocked this reporter at some point after a May 23 article pointing out he did not live in his district and had mistakenly used a photo of Dayton, Ohio on his social media, but this tweet is still visible and definitely a public comment, not a “private text message.”

The incident Sidner referenced about Fine calling a school board member a “whore” happened in April 2022, and was part of an ugly and long-running feud he had with Brevard County School Board member Jennifer Jenkins, a Democrat.

According to local news reports, Fine expressed his anger with Jenkins, because she was invited to a Special Olympics fundraising event organized by the West Melbourne Police Department and he was not. In text messages to a city councilman, Fine threatened multiple times to get the funding for the Special Olympics pulled and wrote that he was “not going to jack shit where that whore is at,” meaning Jenkins. Fine then attempted to block a public records request for those text messages and tried to get the city attorney complying with the request fired.

In July 2021, Fine accused Jenkins of supporting Covid mask mandates in a Facebook post and encouraged his followers to call her personal phone number. That number was listed on Jenkins’ candidate qualification paperwork and public record, but Fine’s post unquestionably drew more attention to it. Jenkins told Florida Today she felt this was “doxxing” and she received “hundreds of calls, texts, and voicemails” as a result of Fine’s post.

Jenkins spoke openly at an October 2021 school board describing the harassment, threats, and vandalism her family had suffered, including a false report to the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Fine accused Jenkins of making up stories. “I’d like to see the police reports,” he wrote in a Facebook post.”I want to know who these criminals are — if they actually exist.”

Florida Today verified Jenkins’ claims of harassment, threats, vandalism, and the false DCF report — with a specific connection to Fine:

Days later, police records and video recordings obtained by FLORIDA TODAY supported Jenkins’ claims that she was the victim of a campaign of threats and profanity-laced harassment, that a false report was filed against her for child abuse in early September, and some reports suggested that her detractors cut down a tree in her yard and burned obscenities into her front lawn.

During protests at her home earlier in the year, Jenkins’ neighbors described protesters as threatening people, brandishing weapons, and using foul language, including racial and anti-LGBTQ slurs.

Although one of the protesters was caught on video shouting “Fine says hi,” Fine denied any involvement in the protests and claimed Jenkins had only herself to blame for the false police report for having “paraded” her daughter in front of protesters.

“If Jenkins really feared for her safety, she would have stayed in her house,” he said in a text message to FLORIDA TODAY. “She would not have gone up and confronted those people. She definitely would not parade their child outside … this is all crocodile tears to get attention. She’s a fraud.”

Other public inflammatory comments by Fine include calling Palestinian flags “fictional,” attacking LGBTQ+ organizations as “groomers,” repeatedly tweeting that a political opponent was a Nazi, and calling a Jewish organizer of a local Israel-Palestine panel a “Judenrat,” the German word for the Jews who cooperated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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