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President Donald Trump has issued a response to Friday’s shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where at least 49 people have been killed.
The president’s responses quickly came under criticism for what they left out. Although Trump’s response did mention “mosques,” he didn’t specifically mention Islamophobia , unlike Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who tweeted, “We don’t back down in the face of Islamophobia and racism at home or abroad”— or name “Muslims” specifically as the victims. In a tweet, former President Barack Obama assured “the people of New Zealand” that “we grieve with you and the Muslim community.” The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been highly critical of Trump following the Christchurch attacks—which, according to New Zealand authorities, were motivated by both white supremacist views and anti-Islam views.
At a Friday press conference, CAIR’s founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, asserted that Trump’s rhetoric had encouraged anti-Islam bigotry. Trump, Awad told journalists, has been “able to normalize Islamophobia and give legitimacy to those who fear Muslims and fear immigrants.” Awad called for Trump to condemn the New Zealand shooting as a “white supremacist attack,” and the CAIR founder told reporters, “It is no secret that Mr. Trump has campaigned on white supremacist ideology, on division and fear. He campaigned against immigrants, against Mexicans, against African-Americans, against women, against Muslims. Muslims have received the lion’s share of his attacks.”
Awad went on to say that if Trump “would like to be the leader of the free world, he has to change his policies—and he has to reset the tone by committing himself to unity, equality.”
In the Nation, John Nichols described Trump’s response to the Christchurch massacre as “muffled” and complained that it should have been more forceful. Nichols wrote, “On one of the darkest days in history for Muslims worldwide, the president’s initial response to the New Zealand killings failed to mention Muslims, Islam, Islamophobia, white supremacy, racism, bigotry or violent hatred that targets people based on their religion.” One of the most vehement responses to the attack came from the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt, who asserted during a Friday interview with NPR that it “clearly was motivated by white supremacy.”
Greenblatt told NPR, “We’ve got a big problem on our hands, and we need to recognize that social media allows white supremacy, much like other forms of hate, to travel across borders. And we’ve got to recognize it for the global terror threat that it really is.” Another word missing from Trump’s response was “terrorist.” In contrast, Democrat Hillary Clinton’s response specifically mentioned “white supremacist terrorists.”
