Real-estate mogul Donald Trump suggested in a Tuesday interview that the capitals of France and Belgium have been adversely affected by the lack of “assimilation” from their Muslim residents.

Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Trump about the practicality of his plan to bar Muslim immigrants and tourists from the US, given the size of the world’s Muslim population.

“There is something going on, Maria,” Trump replied. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Sharia law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”

The Republican presidential front-runner said Brussels, the capital of Belgium, had been particularly transformed. Belgium has been home to a number of recent terror plots, and was linked to the November attack on Paris, France, that left 130 people dead.

“You go to Brussels — I was in Brussels a long time ago, 20 years ago, so beautiful, everything is so beautiful — it’s like living in a hellhole right now,” Trump continued. “You go to these different places. There is something going on.”

Trump ignited a national firestorm last month when he proposed a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and tourist travel to the US. The business mogul argued that such a hard-line approach was necessary to keep the US safe from terrorism, but critics questioned the effectiveness and legality of the proposal.

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