--- 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 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=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Praises Fake Story About Shooting Muslims With Pig's Blood-Soaked Bullets  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. At least 12 people were killed and 80 were injured when a van plowed into a crowd in the Spanish city. ```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":"2026-02-23T17:03:07.653Z","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"}}]}] ```