Singer John Legend said that President Trump needs to speak out against hateful ideology, and “needs to apologize for demonizing Muslims” after 50 people were killed and dozens injured at mosque shootings in New Zealand on Friday.

John Legend, in an interview published by NowThis on Sunday, said that, following shootings that occurred in Christchurch, in which 50 were killed and dozens injured, the president owes Muslims an apology.

“He needs to apologize for demonizing Muslims,” Legend said. “He needs to apologize for demonizing brown people who have tried to come here and have a better life. He characterizes their desire to come here and work and feed their family as an invasion.”

After the massacre, Trump stated that the attacks were a “horrible, horrible thing,” but later said that illegal immigrants seeking to enter the U.S. are part of an “invasion.”

“When people of such influence and such stature are endorsing such a hateful, evil ideology, it emboldens those who will go out and do something really evil and nasty, like what happened in New Zealand,” Legend said. “We need the president to speak out against it.”

Singer continued, said Trump “been wrong using this rhetoric and anyone who’s encouraged him or cheered him on in this kind of rhetoric needs to apologize as well.”



“They need to make it clear that it’s not acceptable for us to use this kind of violent rhetoric that leads to this kind of violent action,” the “All of Me” singer told the news outlet.

He added that white nationalism is a “global threat” which has inspiration “coming from United States of America right now, and the American president. Our American president needs to say, ‘This is evil. I don’t endorse it. I don’t embrace it. I’m not winking at it. I’m not equivocating about it. This is evil and I speak out against it.'”

President Trump said he didn’t believe white nationalism was a rising threat around the world, and said: “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess. … If you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet. But it’s certainly a terrible thing.”

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