Chuck Schumer Accuses GOP Senator of 'Despicable Islamophobia' for Telling the Truth

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appears eager to rehabilitate his standing with the progressive left by launching attacks on the right—even when doing so requires gross moral posturing.

On Monday, the New York Democrat, who previously helped engineer a government shutdown to appease his party’s radical base, turned his attention to Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, accusing the Republican lawmaker of “Islamophobia” over remarks tied to a recent terror attack.

Tuberville, however, showed no interest in retreating.

The Alabama senator—one of Congress’s most outspoken voices on Islamic terrorism—was reacting to early reports surrounding the shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. According to The New York Times, the gunman, who remained at large as of Monday, had “yelled something incomprehensible” before opening fire inside a lecture hall.

“We all know what he yelled,” Tuberville wrote in a post on X.

The implication was unmistakable: the phrase “Allahu akbar,” frequently associated with Islamist terror attacks worldwide.

Minutes earlier, Tuberville had posted a broader warning on another social media platform about the dangers of mass Muslim immigration into the United States.

“Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult. Islamists aren’t here to assimilate. They’re here to conquer,” Tuberville wrote.

“Stop worrying about offending the pearl clutchers,” he added.

“We’ve got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we’ll become the United Caliphate of America.”

That was enough to prompt a swift response from Schumer—who, despite being conspicuously silent amid rising anti-Semitic violence in New York City, rarely hesitates to position himself as a defender of Islam.

“An outrageous, disgusting display of islamophobia from Sen. Tuberville,” Schumer wrote in response.

“The answer to despicable antisemitism is not despicable islamophobia,” he added. “This type of rhetoric is beneath a United States Senator — or any good citizen for that matter.”

Spare us.

Chuck Schumer is hardly in a position to lecture anyone about what is “beneath” a United States senator. This is the same Schumer who stood on the steps of the Supreme Court in 2020 and issued a thinly veiled threat—by name—against Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

It was rhetoric more fitting for the kind of Democratic leaders who, generations ago, pushed the country into civil war to preserve slavery than for a statesman claiming the moral high ground.

But Schumer’s reaction makes sense when viewed through a political lens. His left flank is increasingly exposed, with speculation swirling that he could one day face a primary challenge from the party’s even more radical wing—figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

That vulnerability explains his reflexive rush to defend every progressive cause, even when the subject at hand is Islamic terrorism.

And that is, in fact, what Tuberville was addressing. While his post used the word “Islam” broadly, few Americans—Tuberville included—are concerned with peaceful religious observance. What distinguishes Islam in the modern geopolitical context is that a subset of its adherents openly embraces violence and celebrates it.

Even if that subset represents a small percentage of the global Muslim population, it still amounts to millions of individuals willing to commit atrocities both in the United States and abroad. Anyone paying attention to world events over the last several decades understands this reality. History makes it impossible to ignore.

None of this is an indictment of individual Muslims seeking to live peacefully and prosper in America. The Constitution rightly forbids religious tests for public office, and there is no religious test for citizenship.

But when large numbers of immigrants arrive from cultures hostile to assimilation—and instead recreate enclaves of the societies they left behind, from Dearborn, Michigan, to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis—Americans have legitimate cause for concern.

Historical reality and lived experience mean little to Chuck Schumer when his political survival is at stake. Tuberville, by contrast, appears unbothered by Schumer’s career calculus.

“Chuck Schumer will be wearing a pro-Palestinian lapel pin when he runs against AOC for Senate,” Tuberville wrote.

“Keep clutching those pearls, Chuck.”

As of mid-afternoon Monday, the manhunt for the Brown University gunman continued. It’s unlikely either senator will change his position—regardless of who is eventually arrested.

Chuck Schumer may be able to shut down the government, but he still can’t shut his own mouth.