Dozens of senators criticize Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets

More than two dozen senators have criticized President Trump for retweeting videos from a leader of an ultranationalist British political group that claim to show Muslims taking part in violent acts, according to a tally by PBS.

Twenty-six Democratic senators and three Republicans, including Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), have spoken out against the retweets, according to the broadcaster, which asked for responses from each senator. 

{mosads}”I think, one, it legitimizes this group in England. She’s being prosecuted for religious harassment,” Graham told The Guardian, PBS noted, referring to Britain First’s deputy leader, Jayda Fransen, who originally tweeted the videos. 

“You don’t want to take a fringe group and elevate its content. I think it also is not the message we need to be sending right now when we need Muslim allies,” he continued. 

Lankford, meanwhile, emphasized in a statement responding to the tweets that Muslims are not enemies of the U.S. 

“Our enemy is not all Muslim people; it is the thugs who seek to kill and terrorize the innocent. Senator Lankford believes we should not project the actions of a few on an entire faith or community,” Lankford said. 

And Flake reacted on Twitter, calling the retweets “highly inappropriate.”

This was highly inappropriate https://t.co/oe7cDCWVcm

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) November 29, 2017

Despite the condemnation, the White House stood by the president.

“I’m not talking about the nature of the video,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Wednesday. “I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing. The threat is real and that is what the president is talking about.”