Johari Abdul-Malik – Imam Johari Abdul Malik comments on Trumps idea of Temporary Ban Muslim from entering U S

Donald Trump is defending his call for a

temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

I want you to take a look at

this exchange with my colleague, Chris Cuomo, on

CNN's New Day.

Our security network is the best in the

world. If you ask people who are in

the business of keeping us safe, they say

the idea of banning Muslims

does nothing to help and everything to hurt.

They're the experts. That's what they say. They

think this idea is stupid.

Until I well, when you say that so

I spoke before an audience last night, a

a massive audience last night. Right. The people

were there. Thousands of people inside, thousands of

people outside. They couldn't even get in

and got standing ovations as soon as this

was mentioned. Standing ovations.

Of course, you did, mister Trump. These are

your people. I mean, I have standing ovations

from very smart people. These are intelligent people.

These are great citizens.

These are people that are concerned about our

country until our country's representatives

can figure it out.

Discuss now with Imam Jahari Abdul Malik of

the Council of Muslim Organizations in the Greater

Washington Area. Thank you, Imam, for joining us.

You're doing okay? Thank you for having me.

What do you make of this debate, Imam,

going on now about banning Muslims from entering

the United States?

You know, I mean, first, let let's be

honest.

It it's not realistic.

It's not a rational,

response.

It is fundamentally

a response that is based in fear.

Fearmongering

has never been anything that has made America

great.

When we are afraid,

often we make,

the wrong decisions.

My concern is, how is it that we

can have a nation,

that is built on the love of immigrants,

on the engagement

of people coming from other places in the

world, bringing their skills and talents.

And then you have,

Donald Trump

who would speak against the US constitution

while saying that he would like to take

the oath of office, that he has to

uphold the constitution against You heard he's had

he's had his defenders come on here. Certainly,

he's had his detractors, but he's had people

who've defended him. You hear people in the

crowd cheering him. He was mentioned in the

Chris Cuomo interview. He said, listen. You know,

I had thousands of cheering people, many, many

cheering people. Can you understand, considering what has

happened recently, why people are afraid, and what

would you say to them?

No. I I wanna be clear.

I have been,

in my life as as a as a

Brooklynite.

I have been in many environments where I

have heard people

cheer for something

that was despicable.

This is just another example. If you have

people who like a particular kind of song

and that group is playing, then all the

people in the crowd will cheer when they

hear that particular melody.

It might be Islamophobic,

it might be homophobic,

it might be anti semitic.

It when I grew up, it used to

be okay to call somebody a wap or

a *.

And if you were in that group,

people would cheer you on. That's not the

world that we wanna live in anymore. Mhmm.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that, this discourse is dragging

us back to an era in America

that we thought was long gone. Mhmm. I

want you to take a look at this

this security footage. It's a mosque. It had

severed pigs

heads thrown at at its doorstep. It's in

Philadelphia yesterday. And just 2 weeks ago in

Virginia, the zoning meeting on whether to build

a new mosque, this happened. Take a look.

Let me tell you something.

Nobody

nobody nobody

wants your evil cult in this country.

Right. And I'll tell you what. Right. Let

me tell you what. Right. I want it.

I will do everything in my power to

make sure that that does does not happen.

We don't want it. Because you are terrorists.

Every one of you are terrorists. I don't

care what you say. Okay. And I don't

care what you say. You can smile at

me. You can say whatever you want, but

every Muslim is a terrorist.

Listen. Some applauded, others disagree there. But are

you worried about when you when you see

things like that?

A group of us were invited to come

down to Fredericksburg

to talk to them about how to engage

their neighbors. Clearly, these individuals who are at

this hearing are not people who live in

that neighborhood, who know that mosque. They've been

operating for many years

as as an Islamic center. They only wanted

to expand.

And in the climate

of fear,

of intolerance

and I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest.

If if we take this this approach,

of accepting this kind of intolerance,

we will be no better

than ISIS

and the others who are intolerant

of other faiths and other ideas.

We've gotta work together. We've gotta come through

this

together. We've survived

many, many

episodes of racism before,

and it's now time for Americans to stand

up and say that we're gonna live by

what we believe in. Imam, we thank you

for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank

you. Is Trump supposed