Glenn Beck defends Muslims in wake of new travel ban
Former Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck said of President Trump’s newly revised travel ban that he agrees that an Islamist threat exists, but he criticized the White House, Congress and the media for failing to explain the difference between Islamists and Muslims.
In an interview with Alex Wagner on CBSN Thursday, Beck, a prominent never-Trumper who supported Ted Cruz’s presidential candidacy, said that the vast majority of Muslims in America are “no different than Catholics or Mormons.” An Islamist, on the other hand, believes “that the Koran supercedes the Constitution or any country” and the country must be run by religious rule. He told Wagner that the fallout from failing to differentiate between Islamists and Muslims could have a dangerous cost: “We could see some sort of internment camp situation,” he predicted, “if there is a December 7th.”
Beck was referring to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. “ We could head someplace we’ve been before and we don’t want to go again,” he warned.
Beck, whose manner is now more soft-spoken than it was in the days when he hosted a daily show on Fox News, also worried about the president’s accusations that his predecessor tapped his phones during the election. Mr. Trump “has access to all the information he would need to prove it or not,” he told Wagner. There’s no reason to create bogeymen, he said, adding that the president “should be quiet” until he comes up with the evidence. This led to an extended plea for a clear and sane look at Trump’s presidency:
“We’re losing our faith in everything. It’s concerning to me that we’re now going down this road of ‘deep state.’ We have to logically come together -- people on the right and the left that are fair minded -- let’s fix reason firmly in her seat and question everything honestly and look at all of it, and disprove this or prove this,” Beck pleaded. “We can’t go another year, let alone another four years with someone claiming that the government is somehow or another run by shadow people.”
Watch CBSN for more of Alex Wagner’s interview with Glenn Beck.