TPM Election Central is running a story tonight that calls into question some remarks Mitt Romney made earlier today regarding an exchange he had with a Muslim businessman at a political fundraiser this month. The TPM story also raises other questions about Romney's views toward Muslims. Let me provide the background first.
Earlier today the Christian Science Monitor published an op-ed by Mansoor Ijaz, chairman of The Crescent Investment Group, a private equity firm based in New York, and a self-described "American-born citizen of the Islamic faith." In his essay, Ijaz recounted a conversation he had with Mitt Romney at a political fundraiser in Las Vegas this month:
I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
When asked about this exchange in a press availability today, Romney denied making remarks of this sort. Here's the transcript of the relevant question and answer at today's press availability, as transcribed by the Romney campaign:
REPORTER: Governor, there is a report today that a businessman says that a close fundraiser in Vegas a couple weeks ago, he asked you a question about having an Islamic person in your cabinet and you said that based on the population of Muslims in the United States that you don't think it would be justified?
GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: No. His question was did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet to be able to confront radical Jihad and would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet and I said, 'No, I don't think that you have to have a Muslim in the Cabinet to be able to take on radical Jihad anymore than during the Second World War we needed to have a Japanese-American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature.' I just rejected that argument number one, and then number two, I point out that people who would be part of my Cabinet is something that I really haven't given a lot of thought to at this point, but I don't have boxes that I check off as to their ethnicity. It's not that I have to have a certain number of each different ethnic group; instead I would choose people based upon their merits and their capabilities.
Choosing people on the basis of their merits and capabilities sounds great. Mansoor Ijaz, however, is disputing Romney's account.
[Ijaz] told the Huffington Post that Romney's comments were made in reference to possible cabinet appointments and not, as the former governor has since claimed, in the context of combating Islamic extremism.
"This guy is lying now to the American people," said Ijaz. "He probably never imagined someone would come out and write a piece the way I did. And I think he made a serious mistake in judgment in trying to disown what he said."
And now TPM Election Central is running a story quoting two Republican sources saying that Romney made similar remarks at a private fundraising luncheon in Las Vegas three months ago. These sources claim that Romney said he would likely would not appoint a Muslim as an adviser. And one of these sources says that Romney made other comments about Muslims that were "racist." Here's more from the TPM Election Central story:
[Irma Aguirre, a former finance director of the Nevada Republican Party,] says Romney made the comments three months ago at Lawry's restaurant in Las Vegas, at a different event from the one chronicled in the Monitor op-ed. Aguirre says that she was at the event with local Republican George Harris, who asked Romney the relevant question. She described the exchange this way:
"His question was something to the effect of, `Considering the problems that we have with the Jihadist movement and the problems we have with the Middle East, would you consider having a Muslim as an adviser that can guide you as to what kind of decisions to make with regards to the Middle East?'"
"He said, `Probably not.'"
Aguirre added that what Romney said next surprised her. "He said something to the effect of, `They're radicals. There's no talking to them. There's no negotiating with them.' I can't remember the exact words he used, but that was the explanation. We left thinking, `Wow, what a racist comment. He automatically assumed that all Muslims are radical.'"
Then there's this somewhat odd wrinkle in the story:
As it happens, the question posed to Romney in Las Vegas [by George Harris] led to the follow-up question [by Ijaz], also in Nevada, three months later. Aguirre and Harris subsequently told the businessman who later wrote the Monitor article of their exchange with Romney. The businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, who has actively lobbied American officials on Mideast policy for many years, tells me that this is what prompted him to go to the event he described in the article and ask Romney the question again.
TPM was unable to get a response tonight from Romney's team regarding this story. If the questions that Mansoor Ijaz and George Harris asked at these political fundraisers were part of group Q and A sessions, there should be others who can shed some more light on these matters. Assuming that is the case, I hope these other witnesses speak up.
UPDATE (11/28): TPM Cafe has found one other person who attended the same political fundraiser Mansoor Ijaz did and is willing to comment on the disputed exchange, although this person did not want his name used in the story. Here's what the person had to say:
"I can tell you that what was reported by Mansoor is accurate," this person said to [TPM Cafe]. The man, a real estate broker and volunteer in local Republican politics, declined to allow his name to be used.
Romney disputed the account in remarks to reporters yesterday, saying that he had said that he didn't need a Muslim in his cabinet to effectively fight Jihad, not that he'd said he was opposed to the idea of having one in his cabinet.
When [TPM Cafe] read Romney's remarks [at the press availability (see above)] to this Republican . . . he said: "I don't recall Romney saying what you read to me," adding that "what Monsoor stated was an accurate representation."
ANOTHER UPDATE (11/29): Here's a Q and A the National Review did with Mansoor Ijaz about this matter.
THIRD UPDATE (11/30): TPM Cafe reports that four people have now claimed that Mitt Romney said it was unlikely that he would include a Muslim in his cabinet. Here's what the fourth person said:
Jarret Keene, a freelance reporter for a libertarian mag called Liberty Watch Magazine, tells [TPM Cafe] that he was at a private fundraising luncheon three months ago where he heard Romney say this.
"He was asked if he would appoint a Muslim to his cabinet," Keene told me. "And he said, `Not likely.' He said flatly that it was highly unlikely that it was ever going to happen."
More on these things later.
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