US President Donald Trump has called New Zealand’s prime minister to express his condolences and has described the attack as “a horrible horrible thing”. He also told journalists that he had not seen a manifesto purportedly from one of the attackers that named him as an inspiration for white identity ideology.
Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reports from Washington
Video Transcript:
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It was a somber day of prayer for
00:02 American Muslims all expressing sorrow
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for those who died in the New Zealand
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mosque attacks
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I’m absolutely heartbroken as everybody
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is today I woke up to the news my phone
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was blowing up with this and I was
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absolutely I needed to come to Jamaa
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prayer but in a nation that has seen its
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share of attacks on houses of worship
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there’s concern about what many viewers
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as sometimes inflammatory comments that
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are uttered by the president I actually
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think that the Islamic Lobeck rhetoric
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that exists from the White House is very
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much ignites responses that causes
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events like these to happen around the
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world a message driven home by this
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Muslim leader mr. Trump your words
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matter your policies matter they impact
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the lives of innocent people at home and
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globally in recent years the US has seen
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an uptake in extreme right-wing violence
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at least one convicted extremists with
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clearly defined links to President Trump
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Cesar Seok sent pipe bombs to the
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president’s critics and had pictures of
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Donald Trump on his van and there was no
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specific criticism from the president of
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white supremacists in charlottesville
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whose actions led to the death of an
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anti-racist protester the president’s
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response there are very fine people on
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both sides after expressing sorrow for
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the New Zealand attacks president Trump
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insisted he did not think white
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nationalists were a growing global
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threat I don’t really I think it’s a
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small group of people that have very
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very serious problems I guess if you
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look at what happened in New Zealand
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perhaps that’s a case I don’t know
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enough about it yet they’re just
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learning about the person and the people
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involved but it’s certainly a terrible
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thing and discussing his border wall the
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president echoed the words of one of the
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killers who diligently written we are
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experiencing an invasion on a level
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never seen before in history people hate
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the word invasion but that’s what it is
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it’s an invasion of drugs and criminals
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and people
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the Trump presidential campaign
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galvanized the u.s. right-wing
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attracting supporters like this former
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Ku Klux Klan leader we are in the most
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critical election probably in our
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history and Donald Trump is the guy that
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really stands up Donald Trump repudiated
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Dukes support but conservative White’s
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were the key to his election victory a
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demographic the president continues to
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court for what he hopes will be another
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successful campaign Mike Anna al Jazeera
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Washington
