REUTERS/Nancy Wiechec
In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Trump said Clinton "made up" claims that the terrorist group, also known as the Islamic State and ISIL, is using Trump's words in videos to lure new recruits.
"There's no such video. Knowing the Clintons and knowing Hillary, she made it up," Trump said.
Hillary Clinton lied when she said that "ISIS is using video of Donald Trump as a recruiting tool." This was fact checked by @FoxNews: FALSE
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2015
"We have to make sure the really discriminatory messages Donald Trump is sending around the world do not fall on receptive ears," Clinton said.
"He is becoming ISIS' best recruiter," she charged. "They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists."
The Clinton campaign has since backpedaled slightly on its candidate's comments.
When asked what Clinton was referring to Saturday night, campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson pointed Business Insider to a comment from Rita Katz, an expert on ISIS propaganda and co-founder of the SITE Intelligence group. Katz has said that ISIS follows "everything Donald Trump says" and points to Trump's proposed Muslim ban as proof that America hates Muslims.
Clinton's campaign also sent Business Insider a tweet from an alleged ISIS sympathizer's account that commented on Trump's refusal to rule out the potential creation of registry for Muslim-Americans.
On Sunday, Katz took to Twitter to clarify her comments:
#ISIS didn't feature #Trump in a video, but ISIS supporters/recruiters have used Trump's rhetoric to promote ISIS' ideas & agenda#Hillary
- Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) December 20, 2015
Clinton campaign communications director Jen Palmieri told Stephanopoulos on Sunday that Clinton "didn't have a particular video in mind" when she made the comment. But she said Trump is being used by ISIS in social-media propaganda.