WASHINGTON: Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump refused on Sunday to tone down his anti-Muslim rhetoric when reminded that an Al Qaeda affiliate was using his statements to recruit fighters.
“I have to say what I have to say. And you [know] what I have to say,” Mr Trump said in an interview to CBS News talk show “Face the Nation.”
During the interview, the show’s host John Dickerson played a portion of the Al Shabab video that showed Mr Trump saying: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the united states until our country’s representative can figure out what the hell is going on.”
Mr Dickerson then summarised the video’s pitch to Muslims in the US.
“And then the video goes on and says the West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens,” he said. “It’s saying to Muslims, ‘You either join jihad or you leave the United States because of what Mr Trump is proposing.’”
“Look, there’s a problem,” Mr Trump responded. “I bring it up. Other people have called me and said, ‘you have guts to bring it
up because frankly, it’s true but nobody wants to get involved. Now people are getting involved.
Mr Dickerson then asked: “Does it concern you at all that you’re being used in essentially a recruitment video by a terrorist organisation?”
“They use other people, too. What am I going to do?” Mr Trump said.
The show’s host noted that so far there had been no evidence that such statements were hurting Mr Trump. His supporters have stuck with him and his ratings stays high.
The Al Shabab video surfaced days after a war of words between Mr Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton over her suggestion that the Republican leader’s anti-Muslims remarks would be used to recruit jihadis.
During the Dec19 Democratic presidential debate, Mrs Clinton warned that Mr Trump was “becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going to people, showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”
Mr Trump rejected Mrs Clinton’s claim as baseless and called her a ‘liar.’
“Knowing the Clintons and knowing Hillary, she made it up,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week” on Dec 20.
Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2016