Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric shameful, dangerous: Clinton

Washington, Jan 26: Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton slammed her outspoken Republican rival Donald Trump for his continued anti-Muslim rhetoric, calling them shameful and dangerous for the United States.

"It's not only shameful and contrary to our values to say that people of a certain religion should never come to this country, or to claim that there are no real people of the Muslim faith who share our values, and to have the kind of dismissive and insulting approach," Clinton said.

She said this in response to a question about Islamophobia in the US at an Iowa townhall organised by the CNN yesterday. "One of the most distressing aspects of this campaign has been the language of Republican candidates, particularly their front-runner, that insults, demeans, denigrates different people," Clinton said.

"He (Trump) has cast a wide net. He started with Mexicans. He's currently on Muslims. But I found it particularly harmful the way he has talked about Muslims, American-Muslims and Muslims around the world. And I have called him out continuously about that," she said.

"It's not only shameful and offensive, which it is. I think it's dangerous. And it's dangerous in several ways," she said. "It's dangerous because American-Muslims deserve better. And now their children and they are the target of Islamophobia, of threats. I've met a number of parents who said their children are afraid to go to school because they are worried about how they will be treated," she added.

"We cannot tolerate this. We must stand up and say every person in this country deserves to be treated with respect. And we must stand up against the... bullying," she said amidst applause from the audience.

The Democratic presidential front-runner also said the US needs a coalition that includes Muslim nations to defeat the Islamic State and with Trump's rhetoric it may get difficult to build and sustain that coalition. "It is pretty hard to figure out how you're going to make a coalition with the very nations you need if you spend your time insulting their religion. So we need to stand up and point out how wrong this is," Clinton said.

PTI