President Trump responded to the attack in Barcelona by writing on Twitter, “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” Trump was referencing a debunked myth that U.S. General John J. Pershing executed Muslim rebels in the Philippines in the early 1900s by shooting them with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood. Trump made reference to the same made-up story last year on the campaign trail.
President Donald Trump: “He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, 'You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened.' And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. OK? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem.”
Historians say no evidence exists that this ever happened. While Trump condemned the terror attack in Spain soon after it occurred, he has still refused to describe two recent events in the United States as domestic terrorism: the bombing of Minnesota’s largest mosque and Saturday’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville where a neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing one and injuring 19 people.