CNN's Brianna Keilar pressed Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) Monday on whether it was appropriate for the U.S. or its proxies to negotiate directly with Hamas, a designated terrorist group.

During a segment on CNN, the anchor asked: “How are you viewing the U.S. negotiating directly with terrorist groups?”

“Well, look, I can only look at the results that we got. I don’t think anyone thought Hamas would ever release every single hostage. It’s a miracle. So, obviously, the results work, and now we’re in a much better position to go after Hamas because they don’t have the leverage of these hostages. So I support President [Donald] Trump," Fine said, calling himself "an intense guy."

Keller pressed again: “I’m talking about the negotiating directly with terrorists. Does that inform your thinking on how other conflicts might be solved?”

Fine said he believed it did.

“I think what it shows is that when President Trump leans in and focuses on dealing with all of the parties, he can generate results. We need that same result in Russia and Ukraine. And I think that sort of intense focus is the right way to go. It got results here," he said.

The tone shifted when the anchor turned to another controversial topic: Fine’s recently-introduced “No Shari’a Act" in Congress, and his comments on “Islamification” of America.

Keller asked: “You said to Laura Loomer, a controversial far‑right activist, about your bill that 'We have to be focused on the problem' — you talked about the problem being the Islamification of America. You said 'We can see what happened in France, we can see what happened in the U.K., we can see what happened in Dearborn. And we have to say, we don’t want that.'What did happen in Dearborn? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the mayor of Dearborn, in a city that has become 50 percent Muslim, told a Christian minister … that he was no longer welcome there because he did not want a road named after a terrorist. That is what we're dealing with in this country," he said.

"And when you have a radical Jihadi‑like [New York mayoral candidate Zohran] Mamdani possibly being elected in the City of New York, we’ve got to … deal with that."

The anchor then mentioned Trump's outreach to the Muslim community.

“Donald Trump, as you’re well aware, courted Muslim‑American, Arab‑American voters in Dearborn," she said. "He won Dearborn on his way to winning Michigan. He has nominated Muslim American mayors in Michigan, not far from Dearborn, including Dearborn Heights, to be ambassadors … a population that really mattered a lot to him. How do you square what you’re saying with what he has said and how he has viewed these folks?”

"I don’t think they’re inconsistent. Not all Muslims believe in terrorism. The problem is a large percentage do. And what President Trump is doing right is he is engaging with the ones that I consider radical — the ones who want peace with Christian and Jewish communities, who want peace around the world, to set them up to be successful. That’s the way we solve this problem," Fine said.

When pressed further whether he might be “lumping people together,” Fine said: “No. … I’m very clear about this. I believe we have gotten this wrong. The radical Muslims are the ones who want peace. They’re the ones in the UAE, the ones in Dubai, many in Saudi Arabia, who want peace. But it is the mainstream, the imams, that we can see over and over and over again, who call for the destruction of the West. And we cannot be afraid to call it out. We have to recognize that there is evil in this world, and we have to fight it every day.”

Fine’s “No Shari’a Act” legislation has drawn criticism from civil rights groups for its potential to disproportionately target Muslim Americans.

The Florida Republican has a documented history of inflammatory remarks about Muslims and Muslim‑Americans.

Civil rights groups note that he has referred to Muslims as terrorists, celebrated the killing of a Muslim‑American activist and was designated by Council on American‑Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an “anti‑Muslim extremist” for what they described as “a pattern of violent, dehumanizing rhetoric toward Muslims and Palestinians.”

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