Donald Trump has been playing with fire by way of his anti-Muslim rhetoric as he continues to vie for the GOP‘s presidential nomination for 2016. Growing tired of Trump’s assault against Islam, two towering sports legends addressed the business mogul separately.
Boxing icon Muhammad Ali and NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar both lashed out at Trump for his criticism of their beloved religion. Abdul-Jabbar’s response came by way of an essay he offered to TIME magazine in where he essentially compares Trump to ISIS terrorists.
From TIME:
While Trump is not slaughtering innocent people, he is exploiting such acts of violence to create terror here to coerce support. As I have written before, his acts could be interpreted as hate crimes. He sounds the shrill alarm of impending doomsday even though since 9/11, about 30 Americans a year have been killed in terrorist attacks worldwide — as The Atlantic pointed out, “roughly the same number as are crushed to death each year by collapsing furniture.” Trump’s irresponsible, inflammatory rhetoric and deliberate propagation of misinformation have created a frightened and hostile atmosphere that could embolden people to violence. He’s the swaggering guy in old Westerns buying drinks for everyone in the saloon while whipping them up for a lynching.
Ali issued a statement directly to NBC News and while he didn’t name Trump outright, it should be assumed that his barbs were aimed in that direction.
From NBC News:
Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is.
Kudos to those gentlemen for speaking up against Donald Trump’s irresponsible tirades.
[h/t Deadspin]
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Photo: Live! with Kelly and Michael/WENN
