During Tuesday night’s presidential town hall, the Republican nominee, who has proposed a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., exhibited little sympathy for an American-Muslim who asked what he would do to combat Islamophobia. “You are right about Islamophobia, and that’s a shame,” Trump told the woman. “There is a problem, whether we like it or not. Muslims have to report the problems when they see them.”
Trump references terrorism during question on solving Islamophobia: "Whether we like it or not, there is a problem" https://t.co/7JXNmW1Xjt
— CNN (@CNN) October 10, 2016
Trump went on to make the absurd claim that the San Bernardino mass shooting and 9/11 might have been averted if American Muslims would have cooperated more effectively with law enforcement—effectively blaming the very community to which the original question was meant to appeal. He also slammed President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for refusing to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”
“Before you solve it, you have to say the name,” Trump said. It was a hypocritical assertion for a man who began the debate defending his remarks about sexually assaulting women as “just words.”