--- title: Donald Trump Praises Fake Gen. Pershing Pig's Blood Story description: President Donald Trump suggested that Islamic terrorists should be executed with bullets soaked in pig's blood, praising false war crimes canonical: https://time.com/4905420/donald-trump-pershing-pigs-blood-muslim-tweet/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-17T19:50:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:29:35.888Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Praises Fake Story About Shooting Muslims With Pig's Blood-Soaked Bullets og:description: He repeated a false story that he often told on the campaign trail og:url: https://time.com/4905420/donald-trump-pershing-pigs-blood-muslim-tweet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltead8b7d7af7b1213/6988da2b0a4a22e6809cf876/donald-trump-pigs-blood-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4222 og:image:height: 2375 og:image:alt: President Trump Speaks On Infrastructure Meeting Held At Trump Tower og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Praises Fake Story About Shooting Muslims With Pig's Blood-Soaked Bullets twitter:description: He repeated a false story that he often told on the campaign trail twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltead8b7d7af7b1213/6988da2b0a4a22e6809cf876/donald-trump-pigs-blood-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Praises Fake Story About Shooting Muslims With Pig's Blood-Soaked Bullets > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=983fbb6e-1e6f-4ecb-86aa-1bb4e10cae01&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Real Story Behind Donald Trump's Pig's Blood Slander [Watch (HLS stream): The Real Story Behind Donald Trump's Pig's Blood Slander](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WC3RdAPi.m3u8) (0:59)  _Published 2017-08-17. Donald Trump recently told crowds a story about U.S. Gen. John Pershing executing Muslim insurgents with bullets dipped in pig's blood. It's a gruesome story, and it is also not true._  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Aug 17, 2017 7:50 PM UTC  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Aug 17, 2017 7:50 PM UTC Hours after a [deadly terror attack in Barcelona](http://time.com/4904862/barcelona-van-plows-into-crowd/?xid=homepage), President [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4904510/donald-trump-twitter-confederate-statues/?xid=homepage) suggested that Islamic terrorists should be executed with bullets soaked in pig’s blood, praising a [discredited story](http://time.com/4235405/donald-trump-pig-blood-muslims-story/) of a 20th-century atrocity. “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught,” Trump [tweeted](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/898254409511129088) Thursday afternoon. “There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” The tweet referenced a [false story](http://time.com/4235405/donald-trump-pig-blood-muslims-story/) that Trump [told at rallies](http://time.com/4312131/donald-trump-pigs-blood-muslim-story/) more than once on the campaign trail. Trump claimed that during the Moro rebellion in the Philippines between 1901 and 1913, U.S. Gen. John Pershing executed Muslim insurgents with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. Trump’s retelling of the myth has changed each time > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/898254409511129088) That story has been [discredited by historians,](http://time.com/4235405/donald-trump-pig-blood-muslims-story/) some of whom concluded it would have been “out of character” for Pershing. But other accounts of the Philippine conflict have suggested that U.S. troops did use pigs or pig’s blood to threaten or intimidate Muslims in other situations. Muslims consider pig’s blood to be unholy and ingesting pork to be a sin. “So yes, there were deliberate efforts to offend Muslim Filipinos’ religious sensibilities,” Christopher Capozzola, a history professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, [told TIME last year](http://time.com/4235405/donald-trump-pig-blood-muslims-story/). “And yes, there was large-scale violence against their communities. But I know of no event like the one that Mr. Trump describes.” Earlier in the day, Trump [condemned](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/898243270169563136) the attack in Barcelona, which police are treating as an act of terrorism. At least 12 people were killed and 80 were injured when a van plowed into a crowd in the Spanish city. ## Transcript And General Pershing was a rough guy and he sits on his horse, and sits very astute like a ramrod and the air was early 1900s and this is a terrible problem. They were having terrorism just like we do and he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took the 50 men, and dipped 50 bullets in pigs blood. You heard that, right? He fit. 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. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4905420/donald-trump-pershing-pigs-blood-muslim-tweet/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4905420/donald-trump-pershing-pigs-blood-muslim-tweet/"},"headline":"President Trump Praises Fake Story About Shooting Muslims With Pig's Blood-Soaked Bullets","datePublished":"2017-08-17T19:50:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-08T09:29:35.888Z","description":"He repeated a false story that he often told on the campaign trail","url":"https://time.com/4905420/donald-trump-pershing-pigs-blood-muslim-tweet/","keywords":["White House","Spain","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltead8b7d7af7b1213/6988da2b0a4a22e6809cf876/donald-trump-pigs-blood-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltead8b7d7af7b1213/6988da2b0a4a22e6809cf876/donald-trump-pigs-blood-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Speaks On Infrastructure Meeting Held At Trump Tower","caption":"President Trump Speaks On Infrastructure Meeting Held At Trump Tower","creditText":"Drew Angerer—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4905420/donald-trump-pershing-pigs-blood-muslim-tweet/","name":"President Trump Praises Fake Story About Shooting Muslims With Pig's Blood-Soaked Bullets"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Real Story Behind Donald Trump's Pig's Blood Slander","description":"Donald Trump recently told crowds a story about U.S. Gen. 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