Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:39 pm
Donald Trump blamed Obama for Islamic terrorism during an interview on CBS’s Face The Nation where he vowed to solve terrorism by being more racist.
Video:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Transcript via Face The Nation:
DICKERSON: There are three million Muslims in America.
TRUMP: Right.
DICKERSON: What should they feel about their place in American life now?
TRUMP: Look, we are having a tremendous problem with radical Islamic terrorism. And you can say it, or you don’t have to say it.
And we have a president that won’t issue the term. He won’t talk about it. So, we’re having this tremendous radical Islamic terrorism. OK? A lot of people don’t want to even say it. Not a lot of people. We have one person that I really know of, and it’s called President Obama.
Until he admits that this is a problem, we’re never going to solve the problem. But he’s only going to be there, fortunately, a little bit more than a year, because the problem will get solved when he gets the hell out.
DICKERSON: You mentioned political correctness about Muslims. What the criticism of you is, that you are playing on fears that people have and that you’re stoking…
TRUMP: No, I’m playing on common sense.
No, no, I’m not playing on fears. I don’t want to play on fears. I understand the whole world. And I — I understand. And I have Muslim friends who are great people. And, by the way, they tell me there’s a big problem.
I’m not playing on fears. I’m playing on common sense. We have a problem. The World Trade Center came down. And, by the way, speaking of coming down, they put their families on airplanes a couple of days before, sent them back to Saudi Arabia, for the most part.
Those wives knew exactly what was going to happen. And those wives went home to watch their husbands knock down the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going, except we had some very, very brave passengers, wherever that third plane was going.
Those wives knew exactly what was happening.
DICKERSON: You mentioned the families, going after the families. What does that — what does that mean? How would it work?
TRUMP: Well, I would go after — well, at least I would certainly go after the wives who absolutely knew what was happening.
And I guess your definition of what I would do, I’m going to leave that to your imagination. But I will tell you I would be very tough on families, because the families know what is happening.
Even in this last instance, I see everybody knew. So many people knew. They thought that this man and this woman, whether he was radicalized or how he became, they thought something was going on. Why don’t these people report it to the police? Why wouldn’t they report it to the police?
Now, they said it was profiling. They didn’t want to profile. Can you believe this? They didn’t want to profile, even though they thought something very bad was going on.
According to Trump, the problem isn’t that George W. Bush exploited post-9/11 fears to invade Iraq, which created a power vacuum that led to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually became ISIS.
Nope. The problem is that Obama is in the White House.
Trump’s latest statements express a delusion that is front and center among many Republican voters. They believe that all of the problems in the United States will be solved as soon as President Obama leaves office. Governing? Who needs it? Republicans don’t worry about governing because everything is always President Obama’s fault.
As with most of Donald Trump’s statements, there was an ugly subtext of racism president. Trump was feeding the belief among many of his supporters that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, and that he is a secret Muslim. According to Trump, Obama is soft on the Muslims because he really is one.
In short, what Trump was saying that America will beat the terrorists by being more racist. Trump was promising that if he wins, he will be more racist against anyone who is not a white male US citizen.
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is built on spewing this sort of political sewage that appeals to the worst in human nature.
Trump isn’t fit to be president, but his popularity is exposing the racist beliefs that have taken up residence in a substantial segment of the Republican Party.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
