Eric Schultz / AP
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump this weekend said he observed "thousands and thousands" of Muslims and Arab Americans in New Jersey "cheering as the World Trade Center came down" on 9/11.
“Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down," Trump told a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday evening. "And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. So something’s going on. We’ve got to find out what it is.”
Speaking by phone with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week program on Sunday morning, Trump doubled down on the comments:
Footage was screened of some Muslims cheering in the Middle East on September 11, 2001, but internet rumors about Muslims in New Jersey cheering as the Twin Towers fell were debunked by local police at the time, according to the New York Times and ABC News.
Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, did not immediately return a request for more information on the source for the candidate's claims.
During his ABC interview, Trump also said he was "not at all" backing away from comments he had made about establishing a database for Muslims in America, although he later said he was referring specifically to refugees.
"We have no idea who these people are," he said. "When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don't know if they're ISIS, we don't know if it's a Trojan horse and I definitely want a database and other checks and balances."
More than half of U.S. governors have said they are opposed to accepting refugees from Syria after the Paris attacks, which were claimed by ISIS.
"It's probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time," Trump said of the Obama administration's plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. in the next year.
Federal officials have repeatedly underscored the extensive, years-long security vetting refugees must undergo to win asylum in the United States.
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
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