Donald Trump has been regularly making headlines for his oftentimes extreme brand of politics, particularly as it relates to foreign affairs. From building walls to keep Mexicans out of America to creating legislation to kick Muslims out of America, Trump’s presidential campaign has been one built on the foundation of views that are borderline racist and xenophobic.
In a recent stop on his campaign trail that brought him to Charleston, South Carolina, Trump discussed a myriad of topics, such as ObamaCare, the economy, and of course terrorism. Toward the end of the rally, in discussing waterboarding, which is a now-outlawed form of interrogation, Trump scoffed at it being “torture”, and even said we should go “much further than waterboarding”. This lead to the Republican candidate telling a shorthand story about the infamous American general, General John J. Pershing to further his point on harsher punishment.
[General Pershing] took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, ‘You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem.
As it’s widely known coming into contact with swine, of course is forbidden under Islamic principles. What Trump was suggesting by bringing up this highly controversial anecdote is left to public assumption, as news outlets such as CNN, have been unable to get a comment about it from the Trump campaign. It is worth noting however, that he followed the story by telling the crowd “we need to start getting tough, we need to start getting vigilant .. or we’re not going to have a country folks.”
Skip to 33:25 in the video above to hear Trump’s “General Pershing” story.
