Central Florida Rep. Val Demings Compares GOP to Taliban

Rep. Val Demings, a Florida Democrat seeking her party's nomination to unseat Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, campaigned Sunday with a progressive activist who has repeatedly compared the Republican Party to the Taliban. Amy Siskind, author of "The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year," hosted Demings for a campaign event at her home in Mamaroneck, New York, on Sunday. She also hosted a virtual discussion about domestic terrorism with Demings, a former police chief, back in March.

The timing of the tweet suggests Siskind was likely criticizing the Texas Heartbeat Act, which banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy effective Sept. 1. It’s not the first time Siskind has equated Republicans with the Taliban.

She repeatedly made the comparison against former President Trump and the GOP on issues ranging from abortion rights to gun control. "Oh look: the Taliban has arrived in America," she tweeted in January 2017 with a photo of Trump and his cabinet in the Oval Office. "Today, we can put to rest that the GOP ‘war on women’ was a cooked up phrase," she tweeted in March of that same year. "The Trump regime/GOP are the America's version of the Taliban!" In September 2015, well before Trump’s presidency, Siskind said the Republicans threatening a government shutdown at the time over Planned Parenthood funding were "America's version of the Taliban."

Demings announced in June that she was throwing her hat in the ring against several other Democrats, including former Rep. Alan Grayson, in the hopes of unseating Rubio next November. She became a household name in 2020 after she said she was on the "shortlist" to be President Biden's running mate.

Demings’ campaign did not respond to request for comment.