Fla. Congressman Randy Fine says it's 'troubling' that two Republicans DeSantis recently criticized are both Jewish

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine declined to rule out a politically explosive theory in an interview posted Tuesday about why Gov. Ron DeSantis has been so publicly critical of him and Florida state Rep. Hillary Cassel.

Fine and Cassel are Jewish, and Fine had just mentioned her religion in the interview. The interviewer then asked if their background could have anything to do with the criticisms.

“I don’t know. I do find it troubling that the two politicians in Florida that he has chosen to take issue with in a very vitriolic way in the last few weeks are both Jewish,” Fine said in video excerpts of the interview posted on the conservative political news website The Floridian.

Fine also called DeSantis’ criticisms of Cassel — a Democrat who became a Republican late last year — “dumb” because they will make it harder for her to win reelection in her Broward County district.

DeSantis’ communications staff didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Cassel also didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fine was once a supporter of DeSantis and vouched for him with Jewish voters during the 2018 gubernatorial campaign. He later supported DeSantis’ unsuccessful campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

But the two split, badly, when Fine switched his support to Trump — while slamming DeSantis’ handling of issues important to Jewish Floridians in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel and increasing antisemitic incidents in the state.

Last week, Fine won a special election in the northeast Florida congressional district DeSantis represented before he was elected governor. DeSantis predicted before the election that Fine would win but wouldn’t perform as well as other Republicans in the same area.

On April 2, the day after the special election, DeSantis intensified his criticisms of Fine.

“He repels people,” DeSantis said of Fine.

The governor said so many people in the state Legislature, where Fine used to serve, disliked him so much that he pushed to appoint him president of Florida Atlantic University, an effort that ultimately failed.

On Monday, DeSantis publicly criticized Cassel, a Broward state representative who switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party after the last election. DeSantis called her “a liberal Democrat from down in South Florida. She switches parties to be Republican even though she’s very, very liberal and opposed us on everything for six years.”

He offered a similar critique of Cassel at a gathering of Republican Party leaders at the Governor’s Mansion on March 31.

The governor’s comments about her are part of his campaign against Republicans who control the Florida House of Representatives. After years of going along with virtually everything DeSantis demanded, the House this year has changed course, repeatedly standing up to the governor and refusing to do his bidding.

In the interview posted Tuesday, Javier Manjarres, publisher of The Floridian and three other state-focused politics sites, asked Fine about DeSantis “going after another Republican.”

“I don’t understand the details with Rep. Cassel, but what I will tell you is it’s dumb,” Fine said. “I mean, Representative Cassel switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and so obviously she’s not going to be as conservative as everyone else, but do we want to be a niche party or do we want to be a big tent party?

“Now, you know, I mean, she switched because she’s Jewish, and she didn’t like the way the Democrats look at Israel, and maybe that bothers Ron DeSantis, I don’t know. But I don’t understand why you would take a shot at someone who will have a hard enough time keeping that seat as a Republican. I don’t know why he wants to make it harder,” Fine said.

When Cassel announced her party switch in late December, she said she believed in the Republican vision. “I can no longer remain in a party that doesn’t represent my values,” she said in a statement, adding that in her new party “I do know that I will always have input, collaboration and respect.”

And she offered one other, highly controversial explanation for her party switch: “As a proud Jewish woman, I have been increasingly troubled by the Democratic Party’s failure to unequivocally support Israel and its willingness to tolerate extreme progressive voices that justify or condone acts of terrorism,” she wrote.

State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, said earlier this year that was “just a lame excuse” from Cassel.

DeSantis has supported the Jewish community in South Florida before he became governor, during his time in office and as a presidential candidate. He has supported spending at least $43 million for safety and security at Jewish day schools during his time in office.

DeSantis’ first overseas trip as governor, in 2019, was to Israel. Fine was part of that delegation. On another DeSantis visit to Israel in 2023, Fine flew with state Rep. Mike Caruso, a Palm Beach County Republican, to Jerusalem to stand next to DeSantis as he signed into law what Fine called “the strongest antisemitism bill in the United States.”

On Monday, Fine offered other theories about DeSantis’ criticism of him.

“Look, as it relates to me I won his congressional seat. I won his congressional seat by the same margin he won it when he ran. Maybe he’s feeling guilty that, you know, Donald Trump bailed him out when he ran for governor. He wouldn’t be governor if it wasn’t for Donald Trump,” Fine said.

Fine won last week’s special election with 56.7% of the vote. DeSantis won his first election with 57.2% of the vote, though his average over three congressional elections was 2 percentage points higher. Former U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, who succeeded DeSantis and is now Trump’s national security adviser, averaged 64.5% over four elections.

Trump’s early endorsement of DeSantis propelled him to overtake the Republican establishment’s favorite candidate in the 2018 Republican primary campaign and contributed to his narrow victory that November.

DeSantis is still a powerful political force in Florida, but his influence has waned somewhat since losing the presidential nomination and as the end of his second term is in sight. Term limits prevent him from running for reelection in 2026.

Fine offered another theory for why DeSantis has criticized him and other Republicans: “Maybe there’s just a lot of unhappiness with how his political future is sort of sputtering out.”

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