Vox’s Allen: Jindal ‘Making a Play for Religious Bigotry’ By Calling TN Shooting ‘Radical Islam’

Thursday, on MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” Vox’s chief political correspondent Jonathan Allen said Republican presidential candidate Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) was “making a play for religious bigotry” by calling the Tennessee shooting at two military facilities by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez that resulted in his death and the death of four Marines a consequence of “radical Islam.”

Jindal released a statement on the Tennessee shooting that read “It’s time for the White House to wake up and tell the truth. And the truth is that radical Islam is at war with us. We must start by being honest about that. This is grotesque. You cannot defeat evil until you admit that it exists.”

In response Allen said, “He’s looking to distinguish himself from the rest of the Republican field. I think he has in a way that’s sadly very unpresidential. But I think he’s making a play for religious bigotry as an attempt to get to that 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent that he needs to get from being basically not on the map right now. Its an unusual choice and an unfortunate one and we’ll see whether it’s effective in the polls.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN