Melissa Joskow / Media Matters
During her March 9 show, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro suggested to viewers that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) hijab was “indicative of her adherence to sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution.” Amid widespread criticism of her hateful remarks, Fox News responded that the network “strongly condemn[s] Jeanine Pirro's comments,” but took no further public action. Pirro herself claimed that her “intention was to ask a question and start a debate" and that “of course because one is Muslim does not mean you don’t support the Constitution.” But this isn’t the first time Pirro has made hateful and extremist comments about Muslims while appearing on Fox News.
Here are some of Pirro’s prior attacks on Muslims:
Just last month, Pirro suggested that Omar should be grateful to be in the United States because “she is an empowered Muslim woman, while many Muslim women aren't allowed to be educated and they just started driving.” From the February 16 edition of Fox News' Justice with Judge Jeanine:
JEANINE PIRRO (HOST): And the amazing part is she’s a freshman congresswoman, and I believe she came to the United States as a refugee, and now she’s in our Congress claiming that the Jewish state -- that Israel and Jews are what? Evil?
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PIRRO: Have you heard that anyone who is going to move to remove her from Foreign --
QANTA AHMED (CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST): No. And I think this presents a dilemma for the left. Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, just like American Muslims have a liability in this woman, they have a liability in this congresswoman. She is showing the marriage of left-wing politics in the Democrats with Islamism. Bernie Sanders congratulated her and said he stands with his Muslim brothers and sisters. To me, he stands with Islamists, and they do not distinguish between the two. It's very problematic. The Islamism only succeeds by portraying itself as a victim and left-wing politics thrives on victimization, victim ideology. She's no victim, as you said. She came as an asylum seeker. She's moved to one of the highest offices in the land within 23 years. What other country gives a refugee that opportunity?
PIRRO: She is an empowered Muslim woman, while many Muslim women aren't allowed to be educated and they just started driving.
During an unhinged rant in 2015 about “radical Muslim terrorists,” Pirro repeatedly fearmongered about Islam and Muslims. She claimed that “this Islamic cancer metastasizes throughout the world” and argued that Muslims “have conquered us through immigration” and “through interfaith dialogue.” In the same screed, she claimed “there is a reverse crusade in progress” and said that “there will be efforts to limit our First Amendment, our free speech, to comply with Sharia blasphemy laws.” From the January 10, 2015 edition of Fox News' Justice with Judge Jeanine:
JEANINE PIRRO (HOST): We need to kill them. We need to kill them. The radical Muslim terrorists hellbent on killing us. You’re in danger, I’m in danger. We’re at war and this is not going to stop. After this week’s brutal terror attacks in France, hopefully everybody now gets it. And there’s only one group that can stop this war: the Muslims themselves. Our job is to arm those Muslims to the teeth, give them everything they need to take out these Islamic fanatics. Let them do the job. Let them have at it. And as they do, we need to simply look the other way. It is time for this to be over, and stop sending American dollars to any Arab country that does not support this mission. Pakistan at the top of the list. Force Arab nations to choose: They’re either with us or they’re against us. And stop with this nuclear negotiation nonsense. They don’t operate the way we do. You can’t negotiate, you can’t mediate, and you can’t bargain. You can’t even reason with these people.
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Now I’ve been telling you for a year that they’re coming for us. That there is a reverse crusade in progress -- a Christian genocide. Hundreds of thousands of innocents killed in the Middle East. Seven months ago, I said that we need to bomb ISIS, as it began its steamroll through Iraq -- bomb them, bomb them, and bomb them again -- for which I was roundly criticized. Our country’s response to this threat? The FBI destroys tens of thousands of documents deemed offensive to Islam. The CIA removes the word “Islamic” before “terrorist” in those Benghazi talking points. The Fort Hood massacre, the Oklahoma beheading? Both “workplace violence.” Are we morons?
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And as we cower to these Islamic fanatics, our president and former Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton say they will prosecute the man who made the video, free speech be damned. They call murders accompanied by “Allah akbar,” “workplace violence.” This surender is nothing more than a coward's response to the fear of this fanatical terrorism. And this political correctness will be the death of us. They can kill us but we can’t hurt their feelings? I’m surprised the president hasn’t signed a new executive order that simply says, “Don’t offend Muslims.” And make no mistake -- as sure as I’m talking to you, there will be efforts to limit our First Amendment, our free speech, to comply with Sharia blasphemy laws which call for death to those who slander the Prophet Muhammad.
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Our government’s response to the terror threat is to have an interfaith dialogue to try to understand and empathize with the enemy. And when they want to shut us up, they call us Islamophobes. Muslim groups like CAIR and the Nation of Islam have been integrated into our society, Muslims invited to worship at our National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. We’re directed by a political correctness that is so bizarre, so disconnected from reality that it does nothing but assist our enemy in our own destruction. They have conquered us through immigration, they have conquered us through interfaith dialogue, and they have conquered us by co-opting our leaders into a position of embarrassment.
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As this Islamic cancer metastasizes throughout the world -- Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabab in Somalia, Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, Al Qaeda, ISIS -- and as it goes through Europe, it is headed our way.
“Stop defending Islam, start protecting Americans”: After Obama noted violence carried out in the name of religion isn't limited to Islam, Pirro furiously listed off violent attacks by Muslim perpetrators. Pirro cited violent incidents by Muslim perpetrators (while ignoring that right-wing terror was considered the main terrorist threat in the U.S.), asking, “Mr. President, please identify what other violence is being committed against Americans in the name of any other religion -- or is it just a coincidence?”
JEANINE PIRRO (HOST): Mr. President, what’s most interesting is that with the crusaders you so easily identify them as Christians. Why is it so hard for you to identify today’s jihadi terrorists as Muslim? Throw a rock at Christians, no problem, but never speak of Islamic terrorists. Mr. President, aside from the obvious that was then and this is now, the Quran is interpreted by some as demanding jihad, the taxing or killing of nonbelievers, and a worldwide caliphate. And surprise -- today’s terrorists are beheading, imposing that same jizya tax, and in their march to create an even bigger Islamic State. Stop apologizing and stop pussyfooting around with this language dance. We get it -- not all Muslims are terrorists. It was Egypt, a country of 90 percent Muslim that rose up against the jihadists who were also Muslim.
Consider this: The first World Trade center attack in 1993 -- by Muslims. The USS Cole bombers were Muslim. The Fort Hood shooter was Muslim. The shoe bomber was Muslim. The underwear bomber was Muslim. The Boston bombers were Muslim. The September 11 hijackers were Muslim. Mr. President, please identify what other violence is being committed against Americans in the name of any other religion -- or is it just coincidence?
You identify terrible deeds in the name of the Christ. Why not identify terrible deeds in the name of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam? Calling Fort Hood “workplace violence” is a joke. People can’t believe that that’s how you characterize it. But then again, your administration erases words out of reports identifying terrorists as Islamic. Stop defending Islam, start protecting Americans. Stop saying what Islam doesn’t stand for, and start saying what you as our president intend to do about this.
During a 2016 appearance on Fox’s Hannity, Pirro suggested Middle Eastern refugees were violent and couldn’t assimilate. She said this about Middle Eastern refugees: “We've got these guys beating their wives, you've got domestic violence, you've got them hating gays, and we are bringing them to this country. We think they're going to assimilate. They are not.” She also agreed with host Sean Hannity that “this is a clash of cultures.” From the September 20, 2016 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): I honestly think that the issue of not saying “radical Islam,” Jay -- and there's such a difference between Hillary and Donald Trump -- the issue of vetting refugees and allowing people that come from cultures that clash -- directly clash with our Constitution, that Americans fundamentally understand that we have to know if they're coming here to become American and assimilate or do they want to proselytize and bring their value system, which is the opposite of ours, with them?
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JEANINE PIRRO: It is insane. It's insanity. But when we've got these guys beating their wives, you've got domestic violence, you've got them hating gays, and we are bringing them to this country. We think they're going to assimilate. They are not. And what we've got to do, they've got to move their citizenship --
HANNITY: This is a clash of cultures.
PIRRO: Exactly.
During another appearance on Hannity, Pirro claimed the United States needs to know if refugees or immigrants “believe in Sharia law,” arguing that if they do, “that means it is inconsistent with the Constitution. You do not believe in free speech, you do not believe in women's rights, you do not believe in gay rights.” From the May 24, 2017 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): How is it that if somebody comes from a country with what I call a clash of cultures -- where they literally believe men should tell women how to dress, and men should tell women if they can go on an airplane and travel or leave the house without a male relative, where gays and lesbians are killed, where Christians and Jews are persecuted -- I'm trying to fully and completely understand why, if you come from that country, we need to know -- do you believe that? Do you want to proselytize us or do you want to join our family?
JEANINE PIRRO: You know, Sean, that is exactly the issue. Do you believe in Sharia law, and if you believe in that, that means it is inconsistent with the Constitution. You do not believe in free speech, you do not believe in women's rights, you do not believe in gay rights. All the things that they would trash you and me for if, God forbid, we didn't believe in those rights, we are willing to allow people that we know are individuals -- actually, we don't know who they are -- to come here, stick to their own rules, and then say, “Gee, if they kill us, well, we have to make sure that nobody commits a crime of hate.” This is hogwash, Sean. And what is happening in the U.K. --
HANNITY: See, you're xenophobic, you're homophobic, you're a racist.
PIRRO: I am not.
HANNITY: Well, that's what the left says.
PIRRO: I am none of those things.
HANNITY: Neither am I.
PIRRO: And I'll tell you why, Sean, and neither are you. The problem is that we expect these people to integrate. And one of the issues is -- and assimilate. One of the issues is they don't want to. And now we've got people in Congress saying because they are de facto segregated from the rest of us that we have to understand that they’re angry with us. We let them in the country.
In 2016, Pirro argued that “we’ve got to start having a conversation about surveillance in mosques” and said she agreed with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich that the United States should “test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported.” From the July 15, 2016 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
JEANINE PIRRO: I agree with [Newt Gingrich]. I totally agree with him. We have a president who is an apologist. Look, I'm an amateur and in June of 2014 when I first heard about ISIS, I said bomb them, bomb them, and then bomb them again. I took some heat, but I was right. They were the JV team then. If we had done something, if this president would stop apologizing for what we do, what we are, and stop saying, “You Christians, it's your turn,” as he did at a prayer breakfast, then maybe America would be united in a way where we understand that they're coming. They're here, we're next. I've got to tell you I'm as aggravated as everyone who sat in this chair today. If we've got people standing in the blood of innocent victims when they go for an innocent celebration, then we've got to recognize that we've got a problem at the top of this country.
…Our president didn’t want to support [Egyptian President Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi. Thirty-five million Egyptians stood up and said, “We don't want the Muslim Brotherhood. We are Muslims, we don't want the Muslim Brotherhood.” And this president would prefer to give tanks and airplanes to [former Egyptian President Mohamed] Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, forget that. Right now, they are here, they're going to kill us. Women, children, it doesn't matter. We have got to declare war on them. We've got to start having a conversation about surveillance in mosques. We've got to make sure that in the jails these imams are going in and radicalizing people, they just want to kill us. I mean, how dumb are we? And Newt is right. We're sheep saying, “Why are the wolves killing us?” Or, “Be nice to the wolves, not all wolves are bad.” Baloney!
While guest hosting on Hannity, Pirro asked an imam if “Muslims here in America need to speak out more to try to prevent [terrorist] attacks from happening?” and then cut him off and told another guest that “the Muslim community is not coming forward.” From the December 27, 2016 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
JEANINE PIRRO (GUEST HOST): That was President-elect [Donald Trump] during his recent thank you tour vowing to fight radical Islam. After the latest terror attack in Europe and the radical Islamist threat growing around the world, do Muslims here in America need to speak out more to help to try to prevent these attacks from happening?
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PIRRO: We have got this Islamic threat. You don't deny that?
IMAM MOHAMMAD ALI ELAHI: Well, judge, before I start --
PIRRO: That's a yes or no. Let’s start with a premise, there is an Islamic threat facing the United States, correct? Yes or no?
ELAHI: Well, let me answer this way. First of all --
PIRRO: No.
ELAHI: I'm going to answer your question. But let me first of all say, I mean, to the Pope Francis prayer for peace in Christmas ceremony --
PIRRO: I'm happy for the Pope.
ELAHI: Peace for Syria, peace for Yemen, peace for Iraq, peace for Holy Land, for Africa. And also peace for America, an America free of racism and hatred and intimidation and violence and crimes, and everything.
PIRRO: What’s your point?
ELAHI: My point is that first of all the expression of “Islamic radical” is kind of hijacking the identity of the Muslims.
PIRRO: OK, all right, you don't like the term. You don't like the term.
ELAHI: It is like somebody --
PIRRO: Can I ask you a question? Who is responsible for the World Trade Center? Who is responsible for San Bernardino? Orlando? Paris? All right, Imam, you know what, you got all your time.
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PIRRO: Brigitte, the Muslim community is not coming forward. So Imam, I'm going to give you another chance, I'm going to give you another chance. Otherwise we're going to finish totally with Brigitte. All right, here is the chance. Should the family of the San Bernardino attackers, who saw the weapons, who saw all of the instruments that they used, should they have said something and why didn’t they?
In 2017, Pirro claimed that President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban is targeted at “Joe Schmo Muhammad,” who is from a country where “they promised to send in individuals and jihadists to kill us.” From the February 10 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
JEANINE PIRRO: This is -- and let me make one thing perfectly clear: If you are not a citizen of the United States of America, you do not have the right to come to the United States, period, end of the story. The president has a plenary authority, the power to determine who comes into this country. And all this talk about constitutional rights -- if you are from Somalia, I got a news flash, you do not have constitutional rights in this country. And Congress has agreed with the plenary power authority of the president in terms of national security and immigration with, what is it, 8 U.S.C., what is it, 1182-F. When they said that the president at any time can make a decision to block an alien from coming to this country. So it's not about people with green cards. It's about Joe Schmo Muhammad, who doesn't have any vetting from another country that -- where they promised to send in individuals and jihadists to kill us.