There’s been quite a hubbub between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump over her claim that Trump is “becoming ISIS best recruiter." Specifically Trump has called for Clinton to apologize because Politico couldn’t find any ISIS recruitment videos featuring Donald Trump.
And the problem with that is that “a video” isn’t what Hillary Clinton actually said. Yet again, it appears the reading comprehension is not fundamental with the GOP or the media.
Via New York Magazine.
It’s not just me, right? [The Cable Networks] all said that Hillary Clinton claimed there were ISIS recruiting videos featuring Donald Trump. Chris Cuomo is right, there really is no other way to translate it. Hell, even Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact says that this was Hillary’s “contention,” that ISIS is “using Trump for recruitment videos.”
Case closed, pantsuit on fire. Hillary Clinton should definitely apologize, and maybe even drop out of the race. Before we listen to her concession speech, though, let’s just play her big fat lying lie one more time, just for funsies. Here is Hillary Clinton claiming that ISIS is using Donald Trump in its recruiting videos:
In fact, this is what she said:
“He is 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.”
Wait, what? She never actually said that ISIS was producing recruitment videos featuring Donald Trump?
No, she didn’t. She said they were “going to people showing videos of Trump” — not that they had made their own custom recruitment video featuring Trump.
He's demanding she apologize for something she just. didn't. say.
They do have recruitment videos featuring President Clinton, President Bush and President Obama, but not Trump. However she said they were “showing” videos not "making” them and that's absolutely true even according to Politico.
The campaign pointed to an NBC News article that quoted Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the social media activities of Islamic terrorist groups.
"They love him from the sense that he is supporting their rhetoric," she said. "They follow everything Donald Trump says. When he says, 'No Muslims should be allowed in America,' they tell people, 'We told you America hates Muslims and here is proof.' "
The article also quoted David Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, saying that "Trump's incendiary anti-Muslim comments will surely be used by ISIS social media to demonize the United States and attract recruits to fight in Iraq and Syria."
But while such quotes support the notion that ISIS could be making recruiting videos, or will do so, they do not support Clinton’s contention -- offered in the present tense -- that they are currently doing so.
This is the NBC News Report: Donald Trump's Muslim Bashing Aids Cause of Terror Networks, Say Experts:
"Trump's incendiary anti-Muslim comments will surely be used by ISIS social media to demonize the United States and attract recruits to fight in Iraq and Syria," Phillips added. "His comments may also stir debate in countries with large Muslim populations about joining a U.S.-led" drive against ISIS.
Nobody has been more critical of Trump's anti-Muslim broadsides than the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group.
"We firmly believe that Donald Trump is doing the work of ISIS," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.
Earlier, a self-made Arab billionaire told NBC News he regretted backing Trump earlier in the campaign. Khalaf al Habtoor said he was shocked by Trump's comments, which the tycoon defended Tuesday as "common sense."
"He is creating a hatred between Muslims and the United States of America," al Habtoor said.
Extremists like ISIS "will thank Mr. Trump for his comments," he added.
Again, Clinton didn't say there was a “recruitment" video, her point was that existing videos are being used by ISIS and they’re doing it across social media.
Sunday morning also saw Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri work to walk Clinton's statement back. Appearing on ABC's This Week, Palmieri said that Clinton "didn't have a particular video in mind" but was instead referring to jihadists' social-media activity, a line Podesta echoed on NBC's Meet the Press, where he insisted that "if you look at what's going on [on social media], they are definitely pointing at Mr. Trump."
And the fact that ISIS rhetoric and Trump’s perfectly dovetail as noted by Richard Engel.
RICHARD ENGEL: This is not small ball, actually. It would be interesting to say oh this is just fun. This is just more,you know,he's trying to score a few points. But the world watches this. The world sees the leading political candidate from one party making these kind of statements and still doing well and having these rallies. And those vox pops you showed where people are saying, yes, we need to do them. Send them back home. Those are going around the world right now, and people realize this person is leading in the polls. That must be what Americans think. I was today with an ambassador from the Middle East. Today. And we were talking exactly about this subject. And he said, well, people in our country watch what is going on, and it makes us very concerned. So from the world perspective, it is absolutely an image, an impression, a black spot on our collective foreign policy and our conscience. And it also just -- it feeds into the ISIS narrative. It is a national security issue.
RACHEL MADDOW: That's what I wanted to ask you about. The reaction is this is what ISIS wants to hear. You hear that a lot.
ENGEL: Of course it is.
MADDOW: How does that work? How, spell that out, why this is good for ISIS.
ENGEL: ISIS says, join the ISIS cause because the world is against Muslims and we, ISIS, are defending Muslims. So here comes Mr. Trump and says, ISIS is right. Join the ISIS team or join other radicals, or you're going to be deported, or you're going to be kicked out of the country. I kept saying, thinking to myself while he was making these statements, what exactly would this look like? I spend a lot of time on planes. So you come to the airport. Are there people standing there asking you questions? Are you a Muslim? How exactly do you prove it? Do you prove a negative? What do you know about Islam? Tell me what you think about Mohammed. Does that mean people from Indonesia, people from every corner of the Muslim world, over a billion people, including U.S. citizens?
MADDOW: The idea that U.S. citizens would have nowhere to come home to.
ENGEL: I don't understand where it's even coming from. I understand there is a fear. I understand there is a concern about ISIS. But to say that's it, no member of a particular faith in the country. It's irresponsible from a national security point of view. [MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, 12/7/15]
All of this is in addition to dozens of domestic terrorists who have come forward with Trump’s words on their lips to attack Muslims.
We have this Trump supporter who was charged for a bomb plot against Muslims.
Police received a tip Thursday that 55-year-old William Celli, of Richmond, California, was making explosive devices and threatening to harm Muslims, reported KPIX-TV.
Officers evacuated his neighborhood Sunday morning and detonated a suspicious device found in Celli’s home
….
He appears to be a strong admirer of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump — who has been fanning the flames of anti-Muslim hysteria in the wake of mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, California.
“Donald trumps on again I’m happy leaders okay but this guys a great point man I’ll follow this MAN to the end of the world,” Celli posted Oct. 21.
Or this Trump supporter who has argued for “Christian Supremacy” and a genocide to all Muslims.
Right-wing extremist video-blogger Theodore Shoebat has taken a break from calling for the execution of LGBT people to call for the execution of Muslims.
According to RightWingWatch.com, Shoebat uploaded a new video over the weekend in which he pledged his support to Donald Trump and said that he hopes a Trump presidency will lead to a “Christian supremacist” society where devout Muslims will be put to death.
And this Minnesota man who fire boomed a Muslim owned restaurant.
Matthew Gust, of East Grand Forks, was charged Friday with arson after police said he threw a 40-ounce beer bottle filled with gasoline Dec. 8 through the window of Juba Coffee House and Restaurant, reported the Grand Forks Herald.
The restaurant was closed and empty at the time, and no injuries were reported, but the fire caused about $90,000 in damages.
And this Trump campaign co-chair, who happens to be the husband of the Trump supporters who went on a wild-eyed rant about Obama’s “lies”, who thinks anything less that political-violence is “Lying.”
DeLemus isn’t shy about expressing her support for Trump. She’s taken part in previous CNN panel discussions, along with her husband — a Tea Party activist and a failed candidate for “constitutional sheriff” of Strafford County.
…
“I asked Jerry DeLemus what he thinks when he watches C-SPAN and two members of Congress of opposite parties address each other politely, ceremoniously,” Siegel said. “To Jerry, it is not civility. It’s a fake. It’s lying.”
Jerry DeLemus, who drove 3,000 miles to take part in the Bundy ranch standoff, apparently thinks anything less than political violence is dishonest in the current polarized and highly partisan atmosphere.
“They go, ‘Oh, my good friend, my colleague — whatever,'” Jerry DeLemus said. “Well, half of us would like to punch the guy in the mouth ourselves. You know, we’re going, ‘You’re not doing what you’re supposed to do. The other guy’s lying, and you know it. Call him on it.'”
And these two Trump supporters, the Leader brothers who beat and then urinated on a homeless man they mistakenly thought was an illegal immigrant.
Two Boston brothers accused of urinating on and beating a homeless Mexican man have been charged with hate crimes after being quoted by police as saying, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said on Friday a grand jury had brought the new charges against Scott Leader, 38, and Steve Leader, 30, arrested on Aug. 19 on suspicion of beating 58-year-old Guillermo Rodriguez as he slept in a subway station.
So we have case after case of hate speech and domestic terrorism by directly attributed to the inspiration of Donald Trump, not by Hillary Clinton, but by the attackers and bombers themselves.
And also ISIS.