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Donald Trump’s tough talk on terrorism took a bizarre and bloodthirsty turn Friday as he gleefully retold a stomach-turning tall tale about Muslim extremists being killed with bullets that had been dipped in pig’s blood.
His supporters rabidly cheered him on as the GOP presidential front-runner turned myth into his own reality, telling them at a rally in North Charleston, S.C., about U.S. Gen. John Pershing supposedly executing dozens of Muslims held prisoner in the Philippines.
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“He took 50 bullets and he dipped them in pig’s blood,” Trump said. “And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem.”
The yarn that Trump rehashed on the eve of the South Carolina primary stems from a hoax spread via email, according to rumor tracker Snopes.com.
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There’s no evidence it occurred. But the blowhard billionaire seemed to find fresh inspiration in the story.
“We better start getting tough, and we better start getting vigilant, and we better start using our heads or we’re not gonna have a country, folks,” Trump said to enthusiastic cheers.
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Trump also hinted that waterboarding, a banned interrogation tactic he has pledged to bring back against suspected terrorists, would be the least of his enemies’ worries.
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“Is it torture or not? It’s so borderline,” he said. “It’s like minimal, minimal, minimal torture.”
The over-the-top former reality TV star, who famously dodged the Vietnam War with student deferments and a bum foot, has made posturing on military issues and racist rants against Muslims, terrorists or not, keystones of his campaign.
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Trump went on to boast how fears of terrorism have boosted him politically, including in the Palmetto State, where he leads most polls by double-digit margins, according to MSNBC.
“When Paris happened, everyone started saying, ‘We want Trump!'” he said. “The polls came in, 60 percent, 70 percent, 72 percent. This is 72 percent with 17 people running. Now we’re down to 6, we got rid of all these people. It’s so great. It’s so great.”