After Mosque Shootings Chris Wallace Nails Mulvaney Over Trump’s Anti-Muslim Hate, Brings Receipts
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace spent a good five minutes grilling Mick Mulvaney over Donald Trump‘s history of anti-Muslim rhetoric in light of the gun massacre in New Zealand, and asked why Trump doesn’t give a major speech denouncing hatred of Muslims and white supremacy.
On Sunday morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday, Wallace was careful to place blame for the shooting — which killed 49 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand — squarely on the terrorist who carried out the act, but called out Trump’s history of stoking anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiments in language similar to the killer’s.
Wallace began by asking Mulvaney about the shooter’s alleged manifesto, in which he praised Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
“What does the president think of that?” Wallace asked Mulvaney.
Mulvaney noted that the shooter also said he disagreed with Trump on policy and as a leader, and told Wallace “I don’t think it’s fair to cast this person as a supporter of Donald Trump.”
“I want to make it clear, I take your point and I want to make it clear the only person responsible for the this slaughter is the shooter, not President Trump,” Wallace said, then added “but some critics have said that he has contributed over the years to an anti-Muslim climate. Here is one of his statements from the campaign.”
Wallace then played video of Trump saying “I think Islam hates us,” and then noted that “some folks were disturbed that after we saw the manifesto, after the shooting, which said that he was doing this to kill quote “invaders,” the president said this when he was signing his veto message.”
He then played video of Trump calling migration at the southern border “an invasion.”
After noting again that “the president is not responsible for this action,” Wallace asked “has he considered, given the fact that some people seem to feel that he has given them cover, has he considered giving a major speech condemning anti-Muslim white supremacist bigotry?”
Mulvaney insisted that “there’s folks who just don’t like the president, and everything that goes wrong, they’re going to look for a way to tie that to the president, so so they see the word ‘invaders’ in the manifesto… and they say ‘oh there must be some connection between this.'”
But as Wallace noted, Trump’s comments were made after the shooting, and after the reference to “invaders” was publicized.
As Mulvaney continued to defend Trump, Wallace interrupted him, saying “Let me just ask, to the degree that there was an issue with white supremacist white nationalist anti-Muslim bigotry in this country, and there is, why not deliver a speech condemning it?”
Mulvaney insisted that Trump — who said that white supremacists were “very fine people” — “is not a white supremacist, I’m not sure how many times we have to say that.”
Wallace interrupted Mulvaney again to note that Trump “speaks out about a lot of things that he’s not responsible for and that he doesn’t feel that there is any link,” and asked “Why not make a speech, and make it clear that there is no place in America for this kind of hatred?”
“Well I think you saw that yesterday in the tweet,” Mulvaney said, adding “I’m not sure what more you want the president to do. You may say you want him to give a national speech to address the nation, that’s fine, maybe we do that, maybe we don’t.”
Watch the clip above, via Fox.
