Anti-Muslim comments buoy Trump in Republican race

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he saw people cheering the September 11 attacks across the river in New Jersey — a claim officials strongly deny.

Trump first told the story Saturday at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, as he pressed the need for greater surveillance, including monitoring certain mosques, in the wake of the Paris attacks.

“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. 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,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama.

Trump repeated the assertion Sunday in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” as Stephanopoulos explained to Trump that police had refuted any such rumors at the time.

“It did happen. I saw it,” said Trump. “It was on television. I saw it.”

“There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down,” he said.

“I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it,” he added, “but there were people cheering as that building came down, as those buildings came down. And that tells you something.”

A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for clarification Saturday about Trump’s comments.

In a statement, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop criticized Trump for his statements.

“Trump is plain wrong, and he is shamefully politicizing an emotionally charged issue,” said Fulop. “No one in Jersey City cheered on September 11. We were actually among the first to provide responders to help in lower Manhattan.”

Footage of Muslims in Middle Eastern countries cheering news of the attacks were broadcast often on television, but there is no evidence in news archives of mass celebrations by Muslims in Jersey City, which sits right across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan, with clear views of the World Trade Center site.

While rumors have circulated on the internet for years that American Muslims celebrated the attacks in Paterson, New Jersey, police officials and religious leaders denied it at the time.

“Trump needs to understand that Jersey City will not be part of his hate campaign,” said Fulop. “Clearly, Trump has memory issues or willfully distorts the truth, either of which should be concerning for the Republican Party.”

George Pataki, the governor of New York at the time of the attacks who is also running for the Republican presidential nomination, responded on Twitter saying he saw American’s coming together on September 11.

Not sure what luxury spider-hole @realDonaldTrump was hiding in on Sept11 but I saw Americans come together that day @GStephanopoulos

— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) November 22, 2015

‘Waterboarding is peanuts’

The billionaire real estate mogul and former reality TV star is leading the race for the Republican nomination for the fourth straight month, with Republican establishment candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio far behind.

Trump’s standing in national Republican presidential polls has only solidified since recent Islamic militant attacks in Europe, particularly the November 13 strikes on Paris that killed at least 130 people and wounded hundreds of others. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks. The upsurge in violence has put pressure on the candidates who are political outsiders, primarily Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who have little foreign policy or national security experience.

Trump has pledged to be the toughest of all candidates toward people posing threats to the US. On Sunday he said on ABC’s “This Week” that he supported waterboarding on terrorism suspects — a practice that human rights advocates consider to be torture..

“I would bring it back, yes. I would bring it back. I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they’d do to us,” he said.

The first reference to a database came in a Trump interview with Yahoo News published Thursday when he was asked about requiring Muslims to register in a database or carry a form of special identification noting their religion.

Trump was pressed on the idea of a registry by an NBC News reporter Thursday evening while the candidate campaigned in Iowa. Asked if there should be a database system for tracking Muslims in the United States, Trump said, “There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases.” The reporter asked if that was something Trump would put in place as president. Trump replied: “I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.”

In an interview on Fox News Channel on Friday evening, Trump tried to clarify his position. “I want a watch list for the Syrian refugees that (President Barack) Obama’s going to let in if we don’t stop him as Republicans,” he said.

The idea for a database drew sharp rebukes from his Republican rivals and disbelief from legal experts who consider it unconstitutional.

On ABC Sunday, Trump was asked if he rules out a database on all Muslims in the US.

“No, not at all,” Trump said. “I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases.”

Trump has also voiced support for additional surveillance of certain mosques and closing some of them as a way to contain the terrorist threat in the US.