Tommy Christopher points out that all three cable networks are distorting what Hillary Clinton said about Donald Trump being ISIS' best recruiting tool, a statement made almost verbatim by Ted Koppel just last week.
It’s not just me, right? They 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.
These are the words Hillary Clinton said during the debate Saturday night. You can watch the video yourself.
“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.”
Nowhere in those two sentences does it say what right wing media and cable hosts say what they claim.
Christopher:
Wait, what? She never actually said that ISIS was producing recruitment videos featuring Donald Trump? Well, this is close enough, isn’t it? I suppose she could have meant that existing videos of Trump insulting Muslims (which definitely exist) are being shown to people, perhaps on Twitter or something, to encourage people to join ISIS. It’s not like there’s any evidence at all that this is happening, she’s still a liar. Right?
Behavior like this is expected of right wing media. But you would think MSNBC might bother to at least check their sister network, NBC News, to see if there's actually some truth in what Clinton said. Sadly, no. And as Christopher notes, there really is a published report confirming exactly what Clinton said.
The Republican presidential candidate's controversial proposal for barring all Muslims from entering the United States is being used by the head-chopping fanatics and other terrorist groups like al Qaeda to attract recruits by painting the land of the free as opposed to Islam, experts told NBC News on Tuesday.
"They love him from the sense that he is supporting their rhetoric," said Rita Katz with the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the social media activities of Islamic terrorist groups.
"They follow everything Donald Trump says," she noted. "When he says, 'No Muslims should be allowed in America,' they tell people, 'We told you America hates Muslims and here is proof.'"
David Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, said Trump's comments "undermine efforts to drain the swamp of support for radical Islamists by stoking rage that inspires jihad against the West."
"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.
MSNBC actually ran a poll asking if Clinton should apologize. Here's her answer: Hell, no!
Meanwhile, Politifact jumped into the mix by suggesting that there was "no evidence" to support her claim, which is what sparked all of Monday's frenzy.
Perhaps Politifact would like to amend that statement in light of Tommy's report and the actual fact.
