Biden: Anti-Muslim Rhetoric Deeply Damaging to America’s Security, Status

Monday in Washington, DC at the Center for New American Security, Vice President Joe Biden criticized the anti-Muslim rhetoric of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump without mentioning Trump by name.

He said it “calls into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world.”

Biden said, “Adopting the tactics of our enemies — using torture, threatening to kill innocent family members, indiscriminately bombing civilian populations — not only violates our values, it’s deeply damaging to our security. There are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. Some of the rhetoric I’m hearing sounds designed to radicalized all 1.4 billion. How do we win this? How do we win this long term fight without embracing and engaging — and I mean allies in the Islamic community in the Untied States among American citizens and immigrants. How do we do this without allies in the Muslim world among Shiites and Sunnis? Wielding the politics of fear and intolerance, like the proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United State, profiling Muslim Americans or slandering entire religious communities as complicit in terrorism, calls into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world.”