Thursday on MSNBC’s “Live With José Díaz-Balart,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) discussed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps call to ban Muslims from entering the United States and accused him of “declaring war on the Muslim faith.”
Graham said, “Well, this is a religious war and Donald Trump is putting our soldiers and diplomats at risk. He’s never serve ed in uniform. Going to military high school is not military service. What he’s doing is declaring war on the Muslim faith. What I’m trying to do is partner with Muslims. I would go to the capitals of the Arab world and enlist their support to destroy ISIL. They want to destroy ISIL as much as we do. It’s destroying their societies, corrupting their faith. And ISIL will chop their heads off. So when you say no Muslim can come to the United States, you’re helping ISIL. What I want to do is partner with people in the faith, which is 99 percent of them, to destroy a radical strain of Islam that threatens us all.”
“The largest victims of radical Islam is other Muslims,” he continued. “So he’s doing exactly the wrong thing. He has no idea what he’s doing. He appears to be strong, but he’s really not. He’s playing on prejudices and xenophobia. He’s threatening to leave the Republican Party if we’re not nice. If you’re truly strong, you can take criticism. Taking your ball and running away is not a strong man’s approach to this problem of his. I’m going to continue to criticize him and Obama and others. The good news is most of the Republican party’s coming my way when it comes to national security. And what Mr. trump is doing is he’s empowering the enemy because we should be doing exactly the opposite of what he suggests. We should control entry into the country, look at our visa programs, have good vetting, but not declare a war on the faith itself because the hope of winning this war lies within the faith.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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