Trump: ‘I Said Many Muslims Hate Us and I Mean Many’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

KILMEADE: “...want that endorsement of Donald Trump, you have it. Meanwhile, something else that made headlines yesterday and that’s when you doubled down on your comments on Islam. Let’s listen.”
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TAPPER: “Mr. Trump, let me start with you. Last night, you told CNN quote, ‘Islam hates us?’ Did you mean all 1.6 billion Muslims.”
TRUMP: “I mean a lot of them. I mean a lot of them.”
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EARHARDT: “What’s your reaction to that? you probably heard Rubio, we were interviewing Marco Rubio earlier on the show. He was saying that that is a big problem because of the — let’s listen to his response. Then I want you to react.”
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RUBIO: “When someone who is running for president or is going to be president casts the blanket statements, what you do is you lose the focus on what we should be focused on which is radical Islam. Radicalization of Islam is a serious problem globally and that needs to be confronted. But I don’t think it’s correct to say that all Muslims hate America. That’s just not true....The fact is if we wanted to defeat radical Islam we have to work with Muslims to do it....When they say to arm the Kurds or say to work with the Sunnis in that region, those are Muslims. When they talk about voting — working with Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan, those are Muslims.”
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DOOCY: “So Mr. Rubio said that you had said all Muslims hate us. You said many. You didn’t say all.”
TRUMP: “Well, I said many, I mean many. There’s no question about it. I don’t have to be politically correct, you know I’m in this thing to make America great again. That’s what we have — that’s our theme. You have heard it for a long time. We’ll make America great again. We won’t be necessarily politically correct. But you look at on television, look at some of the mosques in the middle east where they are screaming, you know, death to America, death to America. Doesn’t look it’s about 2 percent to me. So I make the statement. And look, we have a problem. And they have a problem.”
KILMEADE: “But Donald Trump, you would — would you also agree that the Kurds have been the best friends in the region, one of the few people we can count on for 20 years?”
TRUMP: “I guess so. I guess we think so, I hope so. We have been very disappointed with our — with the folks that we think are on our side over there. We’ve backed people and they turn against us. We have had so much turning against us, we have given so many billions of dollars of weaponry and everything else and then all of a sudden, we find out that the weapons are turned against us. That the people that we thought were on our side were not on our side.”
DOOCY: “Right.”
TRUMP: “So I don’t think we who’s on our side. But I do respect the Kurds. They seem to be the ones that have most helped. But whether or not — I mean, the question was asked of me, I want to be honest. I know it’s — it would be easier for me to say, well — I didn’t say all. But boy, there’s tremendous hatred there. No question about it. We might as well recognize it, folks.”
DOOCY: “There you go.”
EARHARDT: “Well, a lot of people say what’s happening now is not working.”
TRUMP: “Well, what’s what happening right now is not working. That’s right. We have to rebuild our country. We have to knock out ISIS. We have no choice but to knock out ISIS and to knock them out big and rapidly. We have to get rid of them. You know they’re chopping off heads. These are people — this is medieval times we’re talking about. We have to stop being politically correct about the war. We fight the war in a politically correct way. We don’t bomb certain areas because we’re worried about air pollution. Hard to believe.”