A far-right candidate for Congress in Texas known for her disturbing stunts shared a new campaign video Monday of her lighting a Quran on fire with a flamethrower, declaring America a “Christian nation” and demanding the expulsion of Muslims.
Valentina Gomez, a repeat book burner and previously failed GOP candidate who’s now running to represent Texas’ 31st Congressional District next year, posted the inflammatory video on X, which has limited the post’s visibility over concerns about hateful conduct.
“Your daughters will be raped and your sons beheaded unless we stop Islam once and for all,” Gomez, 26, says in the video before shooting flames onto a propped up copy of the Quran.
“We’re done turning the other cheek,” she continued. “Remember, David didn’t pray for Goliath; he killed him. America is a Christian nation, so those terrorist Muslims can fuck off to any of the 57 Muslim nations. There is only one true God, and that is the God of Israel.”
Gomez, an ardent Donald Trump supporter who failed to win a single county when she ran for Missouri secretary of state last year, has repeatedly attacked Muslim Americans in campaign videos, often referring to them as “pedophiles.”
Her video comes as anti-Muslim hate remains at an all-time high following the war in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a report issued earlier this year.
In Texas, there have been multiple reports of vandalized mosques since last fall, including three on a single evening in May. Last year, a Dallas man was sentenced to 37 years in prison after he killed one person and attempted to kill four others at a Muslim-owned business. The Justice Department called it a hate crime fueled by Islamophobia.
This isn’t the first time Gomez has had the idea to use a flamethrower to get her point across. During her failed campaign last year, she posted a video of her using one to set a stack of LGBTQ+ books ablaze, falsely claiming they were indoctrinating and sexualizing children.
She also carried out a stunt last year in which she staged a mock execution of an immigrant, using a handgun and a dummy. In her post, she said those who commit violent crimes “don’t deserve deportation, they deserve to be ended.” It was later taken down by X.