March 20, 2016
US Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says Islam harbors resentment toward the West.
He told CNN, “I think Islam hates us,” adding, “We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us.”
Asked whether he thought there was a “war between the West and Islam itself,” Trump said in his usual obscure phraseology: “It’s radical, but it’s very hard to define. It’s very hard to separate. Because you don’t know who’s who.”
Trump has already drawn intense criticisms, even from his own party, over anti-Muslim rants, calling on different occasions for a total ban on all Muslims from entering the United States.
The billionaire businessman said last November that “something nasty” is coming out of Islam.
The GOP front-runner has also refused to take back his disproven claim that he saw “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in the state of New Jersey on television cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.
The White House hopeful also drew strong criticism for saying that he might require American Muslims to register in a database.