Kaine: Trump threatens 'major erosion' of religious values

Donald Trump’s stance toward Muslims threatens to create a “major erosion” of religious liberty in the United States, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said Monday.

“Donald Trump says we got to treat people differently, keep people out of the country, impose tests on folks if they’re Muslim,” the Virginia senator said during a stop at Clinton campaign headquarters in Richmond. “That would be a major erosion of a fundamental value in this nation, a value that frankly, we are like the lighthouse that is holding that out as a beacon to people around the world.”


Kaine’s comments come as the Republican nominee fights with the parents of a fallen Muslim soldier who condemned Trump’s rhetoric last week at the Democratic National Convention and have continued to speak out in multiple media appearances.

“So many people live in countries around the world where they are punished because of how they worship, they are oppressed because they’re a religious minority or maybe because they choose not to believe,” Kaine said. “And they look at us as the place, we might be able to be like them one day where we can live in the same neighborhood, go to the same schools, you know go to work together and have different faiths but get along just fine.”

Kaine criticized Trump for speaking "in a disrespectful way about the military, about a Gold Star mom and dad for God's sake, about people with disabilities, or saying offensive things about women, or trash people who are Latinos or immigrants more generally," while warning of the consequences of his potential presidency.

"We're either going to build a community that is a more perfect union, that is a community of respect or we're going to decide to do what has been done throughout American history but never to our advantage," said the Virginia senator, who is slated for a solo homecoming rally Monday evening in Richmond, the city that he served as mayor from 1998 to 2001.