WASHINGTON – Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison says President Donald Trump is the “chief cheerleader” of Muslim intolerance, accusing the president of inciting anti-Muslim attacks.
In an interview with MSNBC host Joy Reid last week, Ellison denounced recent anti-Sharia law marches, and blamed Trump for the rise in “intolerance.”
As Alpha News previously reported, Act for America organized marches nationwide called “March against Sharia,” including one in Minnesota. On the Facebook event page for the Minnesota march, organizers stated “Sharia is incompatible with our Constitution and with American values. We stand against female genital mutilations and child marriages.”
Ellison, who converted to Islam when he was 19 years old, was quick to dismiss concerns surrounding Sharia law, claiming it is nothing more than a scare tactic.
“This is nothing more than a tactic to scare Americans about their Muslim neighbors,” Ellison said in the interview. “What we’re seeing is intolerance sort of take over and the president is the chief cheerleader of it all.”
Ellison believes the president is not only encouraging intolerance, but also inciting violence. Last month in Portland, Oregon, two young Muslim girls were on a light-rail train when a man started harassing them. Three men stepped in to help the girls, ending with two of the men being stabbed to death. The third man was critically injured in the attack. Following the attack, Trump took to Twitter to condemn the act of violence. He pushed back on the intolerance, calling the attack “unacceptable.”
The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable. The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them.
— President Trump (@POTUS) May 29, 2017
Despite Trump publicly denouncing the Portland stabbing, Ellison blamed the attack on the president, saying the language used by Trump in the past has “green-lighted” violence on Muslims.
“This kind of thing is green-lighted by the president’s rhetoric,” Ellison told Reid. “These things really do matter. He has given a stamp of approval to a lot of haters.”
Watch the full MSNBC interview with Ellison here.
