Democrats dismiss House hearing on Sharia threat, warn of 'white Christian nationalism'

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, February 12, 2026

WASHINGTON — Multiple Democratic lawmakers were dismissive of a congressional hearing this week about the growing threat of Sharia law in the United States, claiming it was a distraction from the greater dangers allegedly posed by the Trump administration and "white Christian nationalism."

The two-hour hearing on Tuesday by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government about the creeping influence of Sharia was chaired by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.

Last December, Roy launched the Sharia-Free America Caucus with another Texas congressman amid fears their state has been inundated with Muslim immigrants who aim to establish self-governing enclaves under Islamic law. The caucus has since burgeoned to 38 members from 18 states, Roy's office noted Wednesday.

'If Texas falls, so does the nation'

During his opening statement and also later in the hearing, Roy expressed concern that Texas has become "ground zero" of efforts by radical Islamists to infiltrate the U.S. and implement Sharia. He said he has spoken to Texans in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who claim portions of the metroplex have effectively become "no-go zones" for non-Muslims, echoing similar situations in Europe and the United Kingdom.

Members made specific mention of EPIC City, a controversial plan to build a 400-acre residential estate open only to Muslims 40 miles northeast of Dallas, an area that has one of the largest Muslim communities in the U.S.

"If Texas falls, so does the nation," Roy said. "These efforts to undermine the Constitution and demonstrate political Islam have only been worsened by an unchecked immigration system that admitted Sharia adherence into our borders."

Rep. Roy: "Would it be safe to say that the goal of those organizations and the Muslim Brotherhood is for the Western Hemisphere, for Western civilization, the United States and Texas as ground zero, to become Islamic?"

Robert Spencer: "Oh, there's no doubt about it, that's… pic.twitter.com/syLYPgECfU

— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) February 10, 2026

One of the witnesses during the hearing was Robert B. Spencer, who serves as the Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and has written extensively about the threat of radical Islam.

Spencer said during his opening statement that Sharia law is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, but predicted the competing legal systems will increasingly clash amid rising rates of Sharia adherents in the West, which he said radical Muslims intend to destroy by using its own weaknesses against it.

When the city of Keller, Texas, scrapped a proposed anti-Sharia resolution last month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) maintained that Sharia is simply a private morality Muslims follow, a claim Spencer disputed.

Claiming Islamic law derived from the Quran "is inherently political, supremacist, expansionist, and violent," Spencer said the "Sharia law-based legal and civic institutions are contrary to America's founding principles and may violate federal law and the Constitution."

Citing the verse in the Quran that encourages Muslim men to strike their disobedient wives, Spencer offered the example of criminal domestic violence leading to a legal crisis in the U.K., where Sharia courts have collided with the country's judicial system.

"This was no aberration. As Sharia is considered divine law, those Muslims who adhere to it consider it always to take precedence over the laws of the land," said Spencer, who later told Roy there is "no doubt" that the radical Islamist political agenda is to destroy Western civilization from within.

Spencer said their goal has been largely successful thanks to "non-Muslim apologists."

'Sabotaging its miserable house by its own hand'

Democratic members of the subcommittee used their time to pivot from what they deemed unnecessary concerns about Sharia law to lament the alleged influence of Christian nationalism in the U.S.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution renders concerns about Sharia in the U.S. irrelevant.

"We live in a country so great we don't need these anti-Sharia and anti-Muslim legislation," he boasted, going on to liken the imposition of Sharia law to "Christian white nationalism" that he said attempts to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

Claiming "everybody can rest easy with Thomas Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state that he identified in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists," Raskin suggested the hearing was a distraction from the Trump administration's alleged cover-up of the Epstein files and the federal crackdown on illegal immigration in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who came in late and slipped out early, echoed Raskin, saying he was "a little confused about this hearing."

Despite acknowledging that "Sharia law is not something that anybody would want to have to live under," he questioned the hearing's relevance amid President Donald Trump's alleged abuses of the U.S. Constitution, the issues in Minnesota and the supposed promotion of "white Christian nationalist ideology."

When Spencer was citing an internal Muslim Brotherhood memo describing their goal of waging "a grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by its own hand," Cohen raised his voice to interrupt Spencer, who laughed at his accusation that he was acting like Attorney General Pam Bondi.

"What it sounds like is a Middle Eastern version of Project 2025," Cohen said of Sharia law, referencing The Heritage Foundation's political platform that has drawn backlash from the political left.

Describing the hearing as "an interesting discussion of one religious minority attempting to impose its beliefs on the general population, which of course, would violate the First Amendment," Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., praised Cohen for raising "an interesting point about the greatest danger perhaps lying not with Sharia law, but with white Christian nationalism."

Scanlon repeated Cohen's claim that white Christian nationalism is "embodied in The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 manifesto," which she denounced for its call to ban abortion, overturn FDA approval for abortifacient drugs and rescind legal recognition of same-sex marriage.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, a Christian and freshman member of Congress who has been outspoken about his concerns regarding Islamic immigration to the U.S., prompted visible snickering from Raskin on the other side of the dais as he cited figures from a 2024 survey that found 39% of Muslims in the U.S. believe Sharia law should be implemented in the country within the next two decades.

39% of American Muslims support implementing Sharia law in the United States in the next 20 years.

Sharia law is incompatible with America’s governing system. pic.twitter.com/u3ODGc7Ahx

— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) February 10, 2026

According to the survey Gill cited, which was conducted by J.L. Partners on behalf of The Heritage Foundation, 50% of Muslims in the U.S. believe depicting Muhammad should be illegal, and 33% believe Islam should be declared as the national religion.

'Deliberately obfuscatory, constantly nattering'

Near the end of the hearing, Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., pushed back against his Democratic colleagues for wringing their hands over alleged Christian nationalism during a discussion about radical Islam, which he speculated was a cynical attempt to divide and demean.

Noting he routinely interacts with many conservative Christian groups and individuals in his midwestern district, Grothman said he has "yet to find one person who is a self-avowed, or even un-self-avowed, Christian nationalist."

"I've just never met that person, and nevertheless, for whatever motivation — I think to be divisive, and I think to run down this country in the eyes of our immigrants, I think that's what their motivation is — the Democrats keep talking about these mystery people," he continued.

.@RepGrothman ripped Democrats yesterday for trying to turn a House hearing about creeping Sharia law in the US into one about Trump and "white Christian nationalists."

He said he has yet to meet one, and accused the Dems of using the label to divide and demean the country. pic.twitter.com/ULMflz1kgA

— Jon Brown (@JonBrownDC) February 11, 2026

"And I would think that if they existed, sooner or later, I would at least run into one of those people, but I've yet to run into any," added Grothman, who was one of the lawmakers who pleaded for divine mercy on behalf of their state during the Family Research Council's National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance in Washington, D.C., last week.

Speakers at the event warned that the U.S. could easily be conquered if God withdraws His protection in response to national sins.

In a statement he released Wednesday on his website Jihad Watch, Spencer praised Grothman for responding to Raskin, Scanlon and Cohen, who he claimed spent the hearing being "deliberately obfuscatory, constantly nattering on about a fictional 'white Christian nationalism.'"

In their attempt "to shift the focus to the alleged misdeeds of the Trump administration in enforcing immigration law," Spencer suggested such politicians are playing right into the hands of the radical Islamists he was warning about.

"At one point I referred to the success that Muslim Brotherhood operatives have had in getting U.S. non-Muslims to do their bidding and make them think they were righteous in doing so; of course, I meant Raskin, Scanlon and Cohen," he said.