I’m now completely certain that Donald Trump defied his own State Department and probably the Department of Defense while giving his speech in Riyadh.

Trump switched out the deceptive word “Islamist” and switched in “Islamic” while reading his prepared speech from the teleprompter. Watch that struggle for yourself with the edited “remarks as prepared” on the screen:

In advance of the speech, NSA McMaster had been sent out to calm fears:

"McMaster: Jihadis are 'not religious people,' suggests Trump won’t say 'radical Islamic terrorism' in Saudi speech."

Guess Trump is in control of what comes out of his mouth after all, not McMaster or the State Department.

That’s not to say the rest of the speech was terrible, or perfect. Robert’s analysis at PJ Media is a good rundown, and I made some similar points yesterday at Israellycool. I’ll highlight one word of interest to me:

”Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: Barbarism will deliver you no glory – piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and YOUR SOUL WILL BE CONDEMNED.”

“Piety” is the word the Islamic world uses to signify increased observance of Islamic laws. They don’t say “conservative,” and indeed, the Western media’s use of the word “conservative” to denote Muslims following the life of Muhammad closely is devious and deceitful, and I believe intended to cast a slur on both political and religious conservatives in the US and the West.

This is Article 1(b) of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (which the UN shamefully allows Islamic nations to use instead of the UNIVERSAL Declaration of Human Rights):

"(b) All human beings are God’s subjects, and the most loved by him are those who are most useful to the rest of His subjects, and no one has superiority over another except on the basis of piety and good deeds."

Notice how (via the trick of a double negative) it specifically grants “superiority” to those based on their “piety and good deeds.” The entire document is subject to interpretation through Islamic Sharia, which makes clear that “piety and good deeds” are those that the Qur’an says are pious and good.

But back to the Islamic/Islamist substitution; what did the media do?

This Fox News discussion played the clip, but then completely ignored what they must have heard with their own ears, instead speaking about the “Remarks as prepared for delivery,” which the White House put up. To my knowledge, there’s been no release of an actual transcript of what he said. Qanta Ahmed then presents the usual talking points.

Another review of the speech, this time with Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz, chose to hear that Trump did say “Islamic extremism” and “Islamic terror,” but Maajid passes this off as a “slip-up.”

I can’t take any of these opinions seriously. To me, it’s clear Trump is unwilling to bend to the State Department or the Defense Department’s old Obama holdovers. He is absolutely unwilling to use a deceptive term such as “Islamism.”

Are the presidency and Trump powerful enough to change these longstanding and dangerous ways of thought in the government? We don’t know yet.

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