Trump Downplays Being Featured in Terrorist Recruitment Video
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is dismissing his persona being featured in a recruitment video made by the Somali militant group al-Shabab.
In the video, which was released Friday, Trump was shown at a campaign rally in the southern state of South Carolina last month reading a statement calling on the United States government to ban Muslims from entering the country. He had made the call made in response to the deadly attack on a state government facility in San Bernardino, California carried out by a Muslim husband-and-wife couple who investigators say had been «radicalized.»
In an interview that will air Sunday on the CBS News public affairs program«Face the Nation,» Trump defends his comments, telling host John Dickerson that «I have to say what I have to say,» and that al-Shabab has used other people in their videos.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said last month that the so-called Islamic State militant group was «showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.»
The al-Shabab group is not affiliated with Islamic State.
Trump did not mention the al-Shabab recruitment video during a campaign rally Saturday night in Biloxi, Mississippi, but he blamed the rise of the Islamic State on Clinton and President Barack Obama.