--- 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: 2026-02-23T17:03:07.653Z 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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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Aug 17, 2017 7:50 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks following a meeting on infrastructure at Trump Tower on Aug. 15, 2017 in New York City. President Donald Trump speaks following a meeting on infrastructure at Trump Tower on Aug. 15, 2017 in New York City. Drew Angerer—Getty Images  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. 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