Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has demanded an apology from Hillary Clinton for claiming during the Democratic debate that the Islamic State is using his videos to recruit people.
During Saturday's debate, to much applause, Clinton said that Trump "is becoming ISIS's best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists."
As fact checkers with The Washington Post later noted, there is no evidence that the terrorist group is actually showing videos of Trump in its ecruitment efforts. Clinton's campaign pointed to comments made by Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Intelligence group, which monitors global terrorist activity. Katz said in an interview with NBC News that ISIS tells people that Trump's plan to temporarily bar all Muslims from entering the U.S. is proof that America hates them, but alas, no specific videos are known to be used, as Clinton implied. Her campaign walked back the comments on Sunday.
"I demand an apology from Hillary Clinton for the disgusting story she made up about me for purposes of the debate. There never was a video," Trump tweeted Monday before his interview with NBC's "Today."
I demand an apology from Hillary Clinton for the disgusting story she made up about me for purposes of the debate. There never was a video.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2015
Trump went on to tell host Matt Lauer during the telephone interview that Clinton "always lies" and "has been a mess no matter where she has been...look at her record as secretary of state."
"You can be the messenger," Trump told Lauer. "I will demand an apology from Hillary. She should apologize."
"She lies about emails. She lies about Whitewater. She lies about everything. She will be a disaster as president of the United States," Trump remarked.
Lauer then asked Trump whether it was fair to attack Clinton for making false claims considering that he has recently made dubious claims as well. Last month Trump asserted that thousands of Muslim-Americans in New Jersey celebrated the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, a claim that has been widely disputed by fact checkers, according to Business Insider.
Yet Trump stood behind his comments, telling Lauer that "there is proof because many people saw that happen."
"I've been totally exonerated from that. I've heard headlines exonerating me and saying Trump was right," he said, referencing conservative website Breitbart. "There's many, many, many witnesses."
