Fox News' Eric Bolling continued his campaign against American Muslims today, endorsing the views of a filmmaker who claimed Islam is “the worst, most deadly idea in the history of the world.”
Bolling's guest was Eric Bell, a filmmaker who produced a documentary on a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Bell claimed he originally saw “the Muslim community as victims” and that he had an “inclination to stick up for them.” Bell further claimed that after doing “some serious research about Islam” he found that Islam is “a radical, savage religion” and “the worst, most deadliest idea in the history of the world.” According to the Huffington Post, Bell said in a different interview that “the biggest threat to human rights is Islam.” Not only did Bolling not push back on Bell's inflammatory rhetoric, he responded to Bell by saying he would "[l]ove to have you back and maybe expand on it a little bit more."
At the end of the program, Bolling replayed the worst of Bell's anti-Islam comments and announced that he would return the next day for another interview, hyping Bell as someone who “told the truth about radical Islam.” But during his interview, Bell did not limit his attacks to “radical Islam,” he attacked the religion itself. Bell attacked Islam's prophet Mohammed before claiming Islam “is a radical, savage religion” and called it “the worst, most deadliest idea in the history of the world”:
BOLLING: What is actually happening? I only have a couple of seconds. Tell me what you found.
BELL: I found that there's a man who raped a 9-year-old girl, who owned slaves, who killed his critics, who beheaded a tribe full of Jews named Muhammad who is the highest moral example in Islam for 1.6 billion people. And that this is a radical, savage religion. The people aren't all radical, thank god. But the religion is the worst, most deadliest idea in the history of the world. And we need to make sure that we keep a close eye on it in this country.
Bolling's endorsement of Bell's views came just days after a resident of Texas was indicted for “threatening to use violence” against the Murfreesboro mosque. In addition, The New York Times reported that the construction site of the mosque “has been repeatedly vandalized” and construction equipment at the site “has been set on fire.” Other mosques around the country have also been subjected to vandalism and arson. But it should come as no surprise that Bolling endorsed Bell's extreme anti-Muslim comments, as he has a history of extreme, anti-Muslim comments himself.