Why Trump's Silence On The Minnesota Mosque Terror Attack Is So Troubling

Despite a flurry of activity on his Twitter account over the past three days — tweeting insults at Democratic politicians and media outlets alike — President Trump has remained silent about the Minnesota mosque attack that took place Bloomington on Saturday morning.

While nobody was injured in the mosque bombing on Saturday — which Gov. Mark Dayton has called an "act of terror — the targeted nature of the incident has shaken the American Muslim community once again. And they're not heartened by the president's silence, either. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, urged Trump to speak out. “Silence on the part of public officials at the national level only serves to empower Islamophobes,” he said in a statement.

Asad Zaman, the director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, shared the same sentiment. Speaking to BuzzFeed News, he said, “We are wondering why President Trump has not tweeted about this. He seems to want to tweet about security and terror issues.”

The slow or complete lack of attention Trump dedicates to attacks against Muslims is hard to ignore when compared to the quickness with which he fires off tweets about incidents involving Muslim attackers. Trump's comments on these attacks, such as the February incident at the Louvre in which a man brandished a knife at several of the museum's soldiers, come minutes — at most, hours — after news about these incidents breaks.

In June, the president opted to post tweets promoting his attorney's appearance on Fox & Friends and giving endorsements to Republican candidates instead of addressing the murder of 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen or the attack in London in which nine people near a mosque were run over.

In May, it took President Trump three days to condemn an attack in Portland that left Ricky John Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche dead after they defended a pair of teen girls who were being harassed by a man hurling anti-Muslim slurs. "The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable," he wrote. "The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them."

In February, he chose to call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to privately offer condolences for the mosque attack that left six people dead in Quebec City, but failed to acknowledge the tragedy in public.

This continues a pattern of behavior that Trump has exhibited since even before his Election Day victory — rapidly tweeting or commenting on attacks carried out by Muslim perpetrators while either completely ignoring or reluctantly acknowledging attacks targeting Muslim victims.

According to a report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, nine mosques have been attacked per month this year. And if the president's prolonged silence on the Minnesota mosque bombing continues, perpetrators of attacks against American Muslims likely won't be singled out by the weight of the White House pressing down on them, or similar hateful actions in the future.