Once again, the small number of Muslims supporting Republican presidential candidate are making headlines. On Tuesday, May 24th, Mic reported on a CNN appearance by Sajid Tarar, the founder of Muslims for Trump. Twitter went wild after the appearance, the website noted.
In an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, Tarar voiced support for Trump and his temporary ban on foreign Muslims entering the U.S. Tarar-a Muslim immigrant himself-believes the ban would only be in place “until we find out why they’re coming here and what’s their objective,” he said, while also claiming “we don’t want to see this country turning into chaos like Belgium and France and a situation where they’re radicalizing.”
France and Belgium have both suffered Daesh (ISIS)-related attacks in recent months.
Twitter exploded after Tarar’s claims, Mic noted. Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hassan made fun of Tarar’s bow tie, tweeting “The Pakistani-born founder of ‘Muslims for Trump’, Sajid Tarar, is wearing a bow tie on CNN right now. #justsaying.”
A few tweeters made the claim that the mainstream media in the U.S. is trying to legitimize Trump’s views on Muslims, which many have called bigoted. “CNN has now had on a Muslim and Mexican for Trump-in case you didn’t think the media wouldn’t normalize Trump’s racism and bigotry,” @cjwerleman tweeted.
Tarar is not the only Muslim to support Trump. Al Jazeera broke the story of D.C. lawyer Kamal Nawash earlier this month, and Trump reportedly polled at 11% among Muslim voters ahead of the Super Tuesday elections in March. However, the same polls indicate that a clear majority of Muslims oppose Trump, and 67% report to be Democrats.
--AL
