Washington Post opinion writer and guest host for Joy Reid's weekend MSNBC show Jonathan Capehart said President Trump's use of the term 'Western civilization' in his Warsaw speech "triggered" him.



"We've heard lots of clips of the president's speech in Warsaw," Capehart said Saturday morning on AM Joy. "To my ear the one thing that was left out, we didn't play this clip, but in this whole run of things, talking about Western civilization, he through in there we write symphonies. And that's what triggered the alarm bells for me that this was not just some speech about democratic values or Western civilization. This was about something else."



"Am I wrong in making this parallel between Steve King, President Trump and white nationalism?" Capehart asked after he played a clip of the Iowa Republican saying Western civilization is rooted in Europe, the U.S. and every place with Christianity.



Yahoo! News anchor Bianna Golodryga said Trump separating America from terrorists plays "right into the playbook of Vladimir Putin."



"Well, there is an uncomfortable thing you are saying," Golodryga told Capehart. "Specifically, what strikes me, this president, unlike his predecessors doesn't go into these meetings and doesn't go into these speeches focusing on democracy and democratic values. And that's the easiest way to differentiate us from the Russians, from Putin, what have you. So this focus on civilizations, us versus them. Terrorists versus the civilized world, that writes symphonys, what have you, plays right into Vladimir Putin's playbook."



MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance said the Warsaw speech will be read as a "clash of civilizations" and the "ultimate fulfillment" of Osama bin Laden's ideology.



"That speech was the ultimate fulfillment of Osama bin Laden's ideology of the belief that there would be a clash of civilizations between what he views as his crazy version of Islam and the West. Bbin Laden believed in Samuel Huntington's clash of civilization," Nance said.



Capehart said Trump's use of the term 'Western civilization' gives "comfort" to al Qaeda, ISIS and potential converts because the president gave the idea the U.S. is out to "destroy them."



"That's one of the things that trouble me the most in that speech by the president is that he is setting up this clash of civilizations," Capehart said. "He's done this thing that George W. Bush avoided after 9/11, President Obama studiously avoided in his eight-year presidency to not give any comfort to those folks in al Qaeda, in ISIS, anyone in the Muslim world who wants to get converts because the united states and the west is trying to destroy them."