At the most recent Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton voiced concern about Donald Trump inadvertently helping terrorists with his radical rhetoric. We need to make sure, Clinton said, that Trump’s more hateful rhetoric doesn’t “fall in receptive ears” abroad.
“He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter,” the Democratic frontrunner added. “They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”
The Republican candidate demanded an apology, saying there are no terrorist videos in circulation featuring Trump’s rhetoric. There was, however, already some evidence to bolster Clinton’s point, and over the weekend, the case became even more obvious.
Somalia-based Islamist militant group al Shabaab has released a recruitment film in the form of a documentary about racial injustice in the United States featuring Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, SITE Monitoring reported Saturday. […]It was shown between two clips of militant leader Anwar al-Awlaki, killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, saying Muslims in the United States would face a choice between leaving for Islamic countries or staying at home to fight the West.The film was distributed on Twitter on Friday by the al-Kataib Media Foundation, an Islamist militant organization, SITE reported.
Specifically, the video showed Trump calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Asked for a response, Trump told CBS yesterday, “What am I going to do? I have to say what I have to say.”
I’ll take that as a hint that Trump doesn’t intend to worry too much about whether his rhetoric is exploited by terrorist organizations or not.
I’m reminded of a conversation Rachel had with Richard Engel back on Dec. 7.
ENGEL: It would be interesting to say, “Oh, this is fun. This is more he’s trying to score a few points.” But the world watches this. The world sees the leading political candidate from one party making these kind of statements and still doing well and having these rallies…. [People abroad] realize this person is leading in the polls. That must be what Americans think. I was talking with an ambassador from the Middle East, today and we were talking exactly about this subject. And he said, “Well, people in our country watch what is going on, and it makes us very concerned.” So, from the world perspective, it is absolutely an image, an impression, a black spot on our collective foreign policy and our conscience. And it also just feeds into the ISIS narrative.MADDOW: That’s what I wanted to ask you. The reaction is, this is what ISIS wants to hear.ENGEL: Of course it is.
It’s against this backdrop that Trump believes he has to say what he has to say, blissfully indifferent to the national security implications of his brazen nonsense.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."