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Part of: Racism, Immigration, and Minority Caucuses

Dispatch

On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals

What began as a single August 7, 2026 post from Rep. Nancy Mace's official account, calling every Muslim public officeholder a 'trojan horse,' spread over 72 hours into a national story. On August 9, Mace defended the claim live on CNN Newsroom, where anchor Omar Jimenez read her the First Amendment and Article VI's ban on religious tests for office. Across the segment Mace said she did not want to hear the Muslim call to prayer 'five times a day in an American city,' warned that 'our granddaughters' would be 'wearing burkas to school,' and told Jimenez that Muslims should 'go back to that country of origin.' She closed by saying she would 'ban all immigrants from those countries.' Minutes later she posted the clip herself with the line 'Islam has no place in Western society.' This dispatch reproduces the exchange verbatim as transcribed by five outlets, embeds Jimenez's own posted video, and catalogs the reaction across the political spectrum.

On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals

Three days after Rep. Nancy Mace wrote that every Muslim holding public office is a "trojan horse," she sat for a live CNN interview to defend it. What she said on air went further than the post. Pressed by anchor Omar Jimenez on the First Amendment and the Constitution's ban on religious tests for office, Mace said she did not want to hear the Muslim call to prayer "five times a day in an American city," predicted that "our granddaughters" would be "wearing burkas to school," and told Jimenez that Muslims should "go back to that country of origin. It doesn't need to be here." She ended the segment by saying she would "ban all immigrants from those countries."

Reporting credit: The CNN exchange was transcribed and reported by Mediaite (David Gilmour), The Daily Beast (Erkki Forster), and TheWrap (Alex Welch), among others. The quotes below are reproduced verbatim as those outlets independently transcribed the segment; the video is embedded from Jimenez's own X account and CNN's official clip. The underlying X posts are primary artifacts from Mace's accounts.

How it started

On August 7, 2026, days after Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic U.S. Senate primary, Mace posted from her official congressional account: "Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic. We refuse to be silent." A companion post the same day called New York City an "invasion." Maceopedia cataloged those posts, the satire that followed, and the first wave of criticism in a separate dispatch: Mace calls every Muslim officeholder a 'trojan horse,' then declares: 'Total Islamaphobe here.'

Mace's August 7, 2026 X post, the origin of the story. View the original post.

Screenshot of Mace's August 7, 2026 X post calling Muslim public officeholders a trojan horse.

Screenshot captured from the live X post by Maceopedia. View the full-size file.

By the weekend the post had drawn responses from members of Congress, a former GOP congressman, conservative commentators, and civil-rights groups. On Sunday, August 9, Mace took the argument to CNN.

The CNN interview

Mace appeared on CNN Newsroom on August 9, 2026. After questions on Iran, the Epstein files, and the South Carolina Senate race, Jimenez turned to her posts about Muslim officials. The exchange below is reproduced verbatim from the transcripts published by Mediaite, The Daily Beast, and TheWrap, which match word for word.

Omar Jimenez: "Are you saying that anyone who is Muslim is a threat to this country?"

Nancy Mace: "Uhh, that's not what I said, that's not what I said. I do think we have a real issue with radical Islamic..."

Jimenez: "I mean, it sounds like that's what you're saying."

Mace: "No, I was talking about elected officials."

Jimenez: "So any Muslim elected official? Sorry to cut you off."

Mace: "It's very oppressive. We've seen grooming gangs."

Jimenez: "But Congresswoman, there's no indication that Mayor Mamdani has brought any of those ideals to New York City governance, or that just being Muslim brings those in."

Mace: "If you're playing footsie with an imam here in America who's an unindicted co-conspirator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, yeah we have a real problem with that kind of ideology."

Jimenez: "But Congresswoman, when you make a blanket statement like that it implies that every Muslim member of Congress or leadership, folks who are elected, by the way, by American citizens..."

Mace: "Yeah, but this is who he's hanging out with, this kind of person who is promoting communist ideology. America is not built on those values, and in the future, when our granddaughters are wearing burkas to school, we're going to look back and say, how did this happen?"

Jimenez: "There's no indication that that is happening on a wide basis. An expression of culture, Congresswoman, is different than a blanket city policy."

Mace: "I don't want to hear the call to prayer five times a day in an American city."

Jimenez: "Well, if you don't want to hear it, that's OK. The First Amendment protects the freedom of religion. If you don't want to hear it, fine. I grew up in a Christian household. I grew up in the South. Islam is not my religion, but I have Muslim friends who, if that is how they worship, even if I don't want to hear it, that is their right."

Mace: "In the privacy of their own mosque or their own home, not on the streets of America. I think we're speaking a very different vibe here. I look at the women who are covered head to toe with little slits for their eyes. As a woman, that's scary to me..."

Jimenez: "That's not being forced on you, Congresswoman. That's not being forced at a congressional, legal level."

Mace: "It's being forced on women and girls. A 6-year-old girl doesn't get a say if she should wear a hijab or not. I mean this is very, I think, dangerous ideology."

Jimenez: "That's up to a family's decision on how they govern their kids... I appreciate you taking your time and explaining your tweet as best you could there, but, you know, the First Amendment is pretty clear on freedom of religion."

Mace: "I don't want this seeping into American culture. We have Christian foundations as a nation."

Jimenez: "That's your opinion. The First Amendment disagrees that it needs to stay that. If someone wants to express their religion, it's right there; it's number one in terms of the Constitution."

Mace: "Go back to that country is all I have to say. Go back to that country of origin. It doesn't need to be here."

Jimenez: "Congresswoman, America has a long history of expressing cultures from various countries. You know that, we have seen that play out in generations of immigration, but I have to leave the conversation there. Congresswoman, thank you for being here."

Mace: "I think we should ban all immigrants from those countries, thank you."

Jimenez: "And that is your opinion, Congresswoman."

Jimenez also noted on air that Article VI of the Constitution bars any religious test for public office. The full segment is below, posted by Jimenez himself.

Video: Omar Jimenez's full CNN interview with Nancy Mace, posted to his X account, August 9, 2026. View the original post. CNN also published the segment as "Rep. Nancy Mace doubles down on anti-Muslim remarks" (Giana Asterito, CNN).

Screenshot of Omar Jimenez's August 9, 2026 X post carrying the full CNN interview with Nancy Mace.

Screenshot of Jimenez's posted clip, captured logged-out by Maceopedia. View the full-size file.

Four lines from the segment, in Mace's own words:

Quote card: Nancy Mace on CNN, 'Go back to that country of origin. It doesn't need to be here.'

Quote card: Nancy Mace on CNN, 'when our granddaughters are wearing burkas to school, we're going to look back and say, how did this happen?'

Quote card: Nancy Mace on CNN, 'I don't want to hear the call to prayer five times a day in an American city.'

Quote card: Nancy Mace on CNN, 'I think we should ban all immigrants from those countries.'

And Jimenez's reply, which several outlets put in their headlines:

Quote card: Omar Jimenez on CNN, 'That's your opinion. The First Amendment disagrees.'

She doubled down again

Minutes after the interview, Mace posted the clip on her official account with a new line: "Islam has no place in Western society."

Mace's August 9, 2026 post, sharing her own CNN clip. View the original post.

Screenshot of Mace's August 9, 2026 X post saying Islam has no place in Western society.

Screenshot captured logged-out by Maceopedia. View the full-size file.

Quote card: Nancy Mace, 'Islam has no place in Western society.'

Earlier that day she had also replied to British commentator Owen Jones: "If not wanting to be blown up, stabbed, or rammed by a car by a radical Islamist in the United States of America makes us Islamophobes, then so be it." On her personal account she quote-tweeted Rep. Pramila Jayapal and signed off "Total Islamaphobe here" (her spelling), the moment cataloged in the earlier dispatch. Across the weekend, Mace did not deny the statements. She reaffirmed them, repeatedly and on multiple platforms.

The reaction

The response ran across the political spectrum.

Mehdi Hasan, the founder of Zeteo, aimed his criticism at CNN's handling of the segment: "I'm sorry, a Nazi who is trying to ban an entire religious community from serving in government, and spewing bigoted racist rhetoric, is on your show and you're treating them with kid gloves as if it's a normal political disagreement? Come on!"

Screenshot of Mehdi Hasan's August 9, 2026 X post criticizing CNN's handling of the Mace interview.

Mehdi Hasan's August 9, 2026 response. View the original post.

Criticism also came from the right. Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the conservative outlet The Dispatch, replied in three words: "Yeah that's stupid."

Screenshot of Jonah Goldberg's August 9, 2026 X post replying 'Yeah that's stupid.'

Jonah Goldberg's August 9, 2026 response. View the original post.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman, wrote: "The fear mongering from my former colleagues on the right just keeps getting uglier and scarier by the day. And we've still got 86 days to go until Election Day. It's only gonna get worse." Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who had called Mace's original post "absolutely disgusting and dangerous," said Republicans should denounce "blatant Islamophobia." The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the broader episode; its national executive director, Nihad Awad, said "an American woman wearing a hijab is just as American as an American woman without one."

Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt devoted an episode of his show The Warning to the interview. He said, "There is nothing uglier, nothing more bigoted, and nothing more un-American than what the loathsome Nancy Mace is doing," called it "obscene," and compared her conduct to "a Nazi chasing a Jew around the street in 1930s Bavaria" and to "a David Duke with extensions." Schmidt, who left the Republican Party in 2018, noted that George Washington wrote in defense of religious tolerance and that Muslims have served and died for the United States. His remarks were reported by Raw Story's Matthew Chapman.

Video: Steve Schmidt, "Trump and MAGA's Most Vile Bigotry Yet," The Warning, August 10, 2026. Watch on YouTube.

Quote card: Steve Schmidt says there is nothing uglier, more bigoted, or more un-American than what Nancy Mace is doing.

Conservative outlets framed the segment the opposite way. Fox News (Alex Nitzberg) reported that Democrats "hammer[ed]" Mace and led with Jayapal's criticism. RedState (Rusty Weiss) wrote that Jimenez "did his best to derail Mace by interrupting her," and The Gateway Pundit (Jim Hoft) headlined Mace's line about a "6-year-old girl" and a hijab. Mace's supporters cast the interview as her standing up to a hostile host; her critics cast it as an elected official arguing to exclude a religion from public life. Both are working from the same footage.

The constitutional question others raised

Jimenez repeatedly pointed to the text of the Constitution. He cited the First Amendment's protection of religious exercise and Article VI, which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Those are his points, made on air; Maceopedia notes them as the argument Jimenez put to Mace, not as a legal finding about Mace's conduct. Mace's response was that she did not want the practice of Islam "seeping into American culture" because the country has "Christian foundations."

Sources & related coverage

This dispatch republishes Mace's own dated, public words and the CNN exchange as transcribed by multiple outlets, embeds the video from the interviewer's own account, and attributes every characterization ("Islamophobic," "Nazi," "blatant Islamophobia," "vile person," and the defenses on the right) to the named person who made it. Mace has not disputed making these statements; the contest is over how to characterize them.

On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 1
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 2
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 3
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 4
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 5
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 6
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 7
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 8
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 9
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 10
On CNN, Mace says Muslims should 'go back to that country' as her 'trojan horse' furor spirals: image 11
  • August 4, 2026 · Dispatch

    "60,000 Muslims Invade Spain" on Mace's official House account, then a no-comment repost of a meme naming Omar and Tlaib

    Between July 31 and August 4, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace posted about Muslims across both of her X accounts. On August 4, on her personal account @NancyMace, she reposted, with no caption of her own, a meme from the account @RagingAmericans reading 'Radical Islam will destroy this country just like it's destroyed every other country it's touched if we don't put a stop to it!!' laid over a photo collage that includes Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, two sitting Muslim members of Congress. Four days earlier, on July 31, she used her official, taxpayer-funded congressional account @RepNancyMace to post an office-produced graphic carrying the U.S. House seal and headlined '60,000 MUSLIMS INVADE SPAIN,' with her own text describing 'around 60,000 Muslim "migrants" from Morocco' as 'criminals' whose 'culture is incompatible with Western civilization.' This dispatch reproduces both posts, distinguishes the words Mace wrote herself from the meme she amplified without comment, and links the July 27 post that anchors the pattern.

  • August 7, 2026 · Dispatch

    Mace calls every Muslim officeholder a 'trojan horse,' then declares: 'Total Islamaphobe here'

    On August 7, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace wrote that every Muslim holding public office in America is a 'trojan horse' and a threat to national security and the republic. The next day, the satire account The Babylon Bibi posted an altered image replacing Muslims with Jews and adding a fake headline saying Mace had been removed from office. MEAWW fact-checked the removal claim as false, but the satire exposed the point: the same attack became instantly recognizable as bigotry when the targeted religious minority was changed. As criticism mounted, Mace doubled down, quote-tweeting a critic and signing off 'Total Islamaphobe here' (her spelling).

  • July 27, 2026 · Dispatch

    "Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims": Mace's July 27 post draws 53,500 likes

    On July 27, 2026, at 7:04 PM ET, Rep. Nancy Mace posted on her personal X account, @NancyMace: 'Not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims.' The post drew roughly 53,500 likes and 7,440 replies. It is the latest entry in a pattern of Mace statements about Muslims and Islam that runs from a June 2026 H-E-B endorsement through a November 2025 'Stop Muslim radicals' fundraising email to her own Muslim Brotherhood legislation, alongside her repeated line that opposing 'radical Islam' and Sharia law 'isn't Islamophobia.'