Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden thinks Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is being used as a recruitment tool by Islamic State militants.
“Last week, Trump appeared in an ISIL propaganda video post-Brussels. In January, he appeared in an al Shabaab propaganda video. Has Donald Trump, in your view, with all his incendiary rhetoric, has he become a recruiting sergeant for groups such as ISIL, al Qaeda [and] al Shabaab?” Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan asked Hayden in an interview set to air next week.
“Here’s the basic issue … the fundamental narrative of ISIS, al Qaeda, al Shabaab and so on is that there is undying enmity between Islam and the Western world,” Hayden responded. “When Mr. Trump says some of the things that he has said – ‘They all hate us. We shouldn’t let any of them into our country’ – what he does is underscore and underpin the fundamentals of their narrative of undying enmity.”
“So he could be described as a recruiting sergeant for these groups?” Hasan asked again.
“Yes,” Hayden said.
“You don’t have to be president for that kind of statement from someone so prominent in the American political system, to have already made Americans less safe,” he added, referring to Trump’s comments after the recent terror attacks in Brussels.
In the aftermath of Brussels, Trump advocated for “closing our borders” and doubled down on his proposal to halt all immigration of non-American Muslims to the U.S. He later accused Republican rival Ted Cruz of “copying” his proposals when the Texas senator called for police monitoring of Muslim neighborhoods.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton was the first to claim Trump’s rhetoric has helped Islamic extremists. In December, she said the billionaire was “becoming ISIS’ best recruiter.”
