Rep. Allen West, R-Fort Lauderdale, appeared recently on the South Florida-based program The Shalom Show and said that Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim member of Congress, represents the “antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”
The exchange occurred when the host Richard Peritz asked, “Since you’re with a new crowd, people you haven’t really met before, and will be very closely associating with in the future, including Keith Ellison, who supports Islam, how will you manage that?”
Rep. West responded, “Well I think it’s most important that I stand upon the principles that people elected me to go to Washington, D.C., and represent them on Capitol Hill.”
He added, “So that when you run into someone that is counter, or someone that really does represent the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established, you’ve got to be able to defeat them intellectually in debate and discourse, and you to just have to be able to challenge each and every one of their assertions very wisely and very forthright.”
West has called Islam a “fifth column” and a “totalitarian political ideology.”
Luke Johnson reports on Florida for The American Independent.
