Grammy and Oscar-winning singer John Legend said President Donald Trump “rhetoric of violence” and hating Muslims is “inspiring” the kind of violence carried out by a white supremacist in New Zealand.
“He needs to apologize for demonizing brown people who have tried to come here and have a better life,” Legend said told NowThis.
“That rhetoric of invasion, that rhetoric of violence, of scaring white people to think that these brown people are going to rape and kill their families — that rhetoric is inspiring people to do these kind of massacres,” the “Come Together” singer exclaimed in the video.
Legend went on to blame the United States for racism in the world.
“I think what’s clear is that there is an issue around the world, and particularly in this country, in America, when it comes to the evil rhetoric and ideology of white supremacy. This ideology and this rhetoric has been spread, a lot of it on the internet, but a lot of it has been either endorsed or tacitly kind of winked at by our president,” Legend accused.
“When people of such influence and such stature are endorsing such a hateful and evil ideology it emboldens those who will go out and do something evil and nasty like what happened in New Zealand,” he added.
The singer concluded saying that the U.S. is leading the world in racism.
“A lot of the inspiration is coming from America right now and the American president. Our American president needs to say this is evil, I don’t endorse it, I don’t embrace it, I’m not winking at it, I’m not equivocating about it. This is evil and I speak out against it,” he said.
Of course, Trump did condemn the attack in New Zealand.
The president immediately jumped to Twitter to condemn the attack saying, “My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!”
My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2019
White House strategic communications director Mercedes Schlapp added that Trump said the attack in New Zealand was terrorism.
“I just spoke with the president,” Schlapp told Fox News. “He made it very clear this is an act of terror, this is a horrific, evil crime especially targeting these innocent lives at a place of worship.
In the wake of the mosque murders in New Zealand, liberals one again trotted out their lies that Trump said there were “very fine” Nazis in the aftermath of the Charlottesville incident in 2017.
As Breitbart’s Joel Pollak noted, “as CNN’s own coverage at the time showed, Trump used the phrase ‘very fine people’ to describe non-violent protesters on either side of the debate over a Confederate statue — and specifically excluded the neo-Nazis, whom he ‘condemned totally.’”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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