Fox & Friends Hosts Leader Of Anti-Muslim Hate Group To Defend Trump's Muslim Ban

Trump Cited A Misleading Center For Security Policy Poll When He Originally Announced His Muslim Ban In 2015

Written by Media Matters Staff

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On the January 30 editon of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade interviewed Jim Hanson of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)-designated anti-Muslim hate group, to defend President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. The order is likely illegal and unconstitutional and has been condemned across the ideological spectrum. The founder and president of CSP, Frank Gaffney, is a “notorious Islamophobe” and conspiracy theorist who advised Trump during the campaign and into the transition. In his December 2015 statement announcing his intention to institute a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” Trump cited a misleading poll conducted by CSP that, according to experts, used “unreliable methodology” and drew false conclusions. From the January 30 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:

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BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Now, let's talk about what happened at Ohio State. Remember this student: Abdul Razak Ali Artan. What did he do?

JIM HANSON: He went on a rampage driving into a crowd of students and stabbing a bunch of people. And again, you’re looking at a situation where what the executive order says is not just a pause on immigration from seven certain countries, but a charge to the security agencies to now go ahead and look into the backgrounds of people before they come in. No one has a right to come here, so you need to prove that you are safe and you need to prove that you value the things that Americans value. Thirteen percent of Muslims already here in the United States, according to the liberal Pew International, agree that suicide bombing is OK. That's something we might want to be asking people before they get here. 

KILMEADE: Right. That would be part of the screening process. Now the Ohio State guy that was taken out, he was -- he came here from Somalia as a refugee. The children of immigrants also should be looked at. You don't know if they are traveling back and forth. And also, you talk about the Boston bombers, perhaps, the most infamous, the FBI was on their trail. They saw where they went back, but they didn't stop them. 

HANSON: And the bottom line is, most of these cases involve people who, if we had been doing what has now been called extreme vetting, we might have caught them beforehand. The wife in the San Bernardino shootings had a massive social media history of Islamic extremist nonsense. She came to this country and killed a bunch of Americans because our security agencies weren't allowed to look at her background. It says now that we should be looking, we should be finding people who don't follow what our American values are and who don't agree that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness matter. Killing homosexuals. You know, honor killings. All those things are legitimate questions. They are not about religion. They are about the actions of people who probably don't belong in this country. 

KILMEADE: Right. You have Omar Mateen who did the Orlando shooting, and we just picked up his (sic) wife a month ago after further investigation. We can’t do this aftermath, we have to do some preventative, and he’s just looking for a delay for 120 days. Jim Hanson, thanks so much.

HANSON: Oh, thanks Brian.