A MAGA Congressman has received a sharp backlash for cutting his Indian-American wife out of a fundraising ad for his re-election campaign.
“You can call me by any name you want. I just want my children to grow up in a country that they recognize,” Texas rep Brandon Gill wrote in an X ad as he tried to defend himself against accusations of racism. “Every parent & grandparent needs to read this.”
However, the image that the MAGA rep shared to speak on family values failed to include his Indian-American wife.
Gill, who is running for re-election in Texas’s 26th District, is married to Danielle D’Souza, the daughter of Indian-born right-wing commenter Dinesh D’Souza.
Danielle D’Souza, who proudly states she was born in the U.S. and calls herself a “MAGA Christian patriot,” intermittently appears in various campaign materials, most often in highly filtered images that feature her pro-Trump advocacy work, with Gill’s website describing her as a “media personality who has consistently defended our conservative values.”
Social media users were quick to notice that Gill had left his wife out of his latest campaign ad touting American values.
This is the second time in a week the MAGA rep has come under fire online for his rhetoric after he posted on X last Thursday about the left’s tendency to refer to him as a racist.
“The left has one debate tactic: call you a racist and pray you shut up. I never will,” he wrote over a pensive image of himself. “Calling us racist doesn’t work anymore,” he added in the caption.
Minnesota Rep. Shri Thanedar, also of Indian heritage, was quick to hit back, replying, “No one is calling you racist as an attempt to scare you into shutting up. We call you racist because you refer to Indian Americans as ‘7-Eleven workers.’”
“The fact that you married an Indian American shows that you’re just a grifter pandering to a racist base. How pathetic it must be to be that cheap,” the Democratic rep continued.
Gill hasn’t been shy about expressing his views on immigrants, previously arguing that East Africans in the United States are a “net drain” on the economy in an appearance on Benny Johnson’s podcast.
“Not all cultures are equal,” he told Johnson after the pundit claimed that Somalis are innately less intelligent.
The Trump-endorsed rep also circulated a petition earlier this year to deport Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been a U.S. citizen for 26 years, explaining that the country “would be a much better place if she were sent back to Somalia.”
He also got into a tussle with Mehdi Hasan, telling the British journalist to “go back to the U.K.” if he wanted to “live in a Muslim country.”
Gill also told now-New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” last June after he was pictured eating rice with his hands.
When some online suggested that Gill’s wife may have grown up eating the same way, she posted that she has “always used a fork.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Gill for comment.
