McMaster on Trump Anti-Muslim Retweet: We Must Never Reinforce the Terrorist’s ‘False Narrative’ That ‘This Is a War of Religion’

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” when asked about President Donald Trump retweeting videos perceived to be anti-Muslim, White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said there was a “real risk” of reinforcing a false narrative that this was “a war of religion.”

Partial transcript as follows:

WALLACE: General, why did President Trump send out those videos?

MCMASTER: President Trump is the best judge of what he did that, but I know it was his intention to highlight the importance of creating safe and secure environment for our citizens, to make sure that we have the right laws in place, enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that at this critical time when ISIS is being defeated in the Middle East is that there is not a return of terrorist and extremist who can pose a risk to the American people to our allies and partners.

WALLACE: But you know that for instance in the case of the Dutch video, it was not an immigrant that was involved, Britain First is a fringe anti-Muslim group. The woman whose tweets that he sent out has been convicted of hate crimes, why is that useful for the president of the United States?

MCMASTER: General McMaster the key thing is as you highlight the real risk that these terrorists pose to our citizens that we make sure that we never buy into or reinforce the terrorist narrative, you know this false narrative that this is a war of religion. This is really a conflict that involves terrorists who use  —

WALLACE: The retweet was all about anti-Muslim, about Muslim violence —

MCMASTER: Those who adhere to this ideology are really your religious criminals who use a perverted, the president is called a wicked interpretation of religion in an effort to recruit young impressionable people to their cause and foment hatred and use that hatred to perpetuate violence.

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