There is no evidence ISIS is using videos of Trump to recruit new members

I’m shocked – shocked, I say – that Hillary Clinton would say something that is both untrue and an attempt to further ties Republican candidates to the terrorism problems of the world. During last night’s debate, Clinton said that ISIS shows videos of Trump’s statement to potential recruits in order to get them to join their death cult. The lie itself was so bad, even Politifact and the Associated Press have cried foul. Via Politifact:

Not having heard that before, our eyebrows went up when we heard Clinton’s comment, and we weren’t alone. The Twittersphere, on both the right and the left, picked up on Clinton’s statement and questioned whether she had any evidence for it.

Extensive Google searches did not turn up any evidence. And the response from the Clinton campaign did not point to any specific videos.

And via the Associated Press:

THE FACTS: What’s true is that Trump’s provocative comments about Muslims, including his call to ban them from coming to the U.S., have been widely played across the Middle East — in the hothouse of social media and beyond. Plenty of people — his Republican rivals among them — see his positions as playing into the hands of terrorists and raising the risk of radicalizing Muslims in the West as well as in the Middle East. It’s also true that IS has a sophisticated propaganda operation and it can’t be ruled out that the group has spread such videos under the Western radar.

But if so, Clinton doesn’t know about them.

“If you go back and look at social media, if you look at what’s going on, they are definitely pointing at Mr. Trump,” her campaign chairman, John Podesta, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” But he cited no IS videos.

Palmieri said on ABC’s “This Week,” ”She didn’t have a particular video in mind, but he is being used in social media.”

[…]

Clinton’s statement that Trump is becoming the “top recruiter” for IS also is hard to square with the complex realities motivating its adherents.

Attackers connected to or inspired by IS often say their actions are in response to the airstrike campaign against Islamic State militants, whose focus is on Syria and Iraq. Shiite Muslims have been their primary target since the beginning and in their online videos, they often call out to their followers to attack infidels — Shiite Muslims in particular.

When two noted left-leaning journalism outfits are calling Hillary Clinton out on a lie, you know it’s a big one. It crosses the line from a simple attack during campaign season to a dangerous accusation, and it looks really bad when you have a lot you can attack a candidate on, but choose to make something up completely instead. This kind of irresponsible verbal attack is what has made the Democratic Administration of the last seven years so frustrating, and it’s only going to continue if Hillary wins.

It’s certainly no surprise that she would use videos as the basis of a lie, but it’s a new one even for her to cite videos that don’t even exist. What, did her campaign not even try to go to YouTube this time to find some obscure amateur video edited using Windows Movie Maker?

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