By Alex Pappas, Washington Examiner
Washington Examiner
Thursday, May 25, 2017
President Trump "united the entire Muslim world" with his trip to the Middle East, a senior administration aide argued Tuesday.
The aide made the comment to reporters Tuesday during the president's flight from Tel Aviv to Rome, according to a pool report distributed to media outlets.
Trump is on his first foreign trip as president, having visited Saudi Arabia and Israel over the last few days. He still has meetings in Rome, Brussels and Sicily the rest of the week.
"He was able to really go into Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the holy mosques, and then Donald Trump united the entire Muslim world in a way that it really hasn't been in many years," the official said. "So it really was very historic in that regard."
During the Saudi Arabia trip, Trump met with King Salman and delivered a speech Sunday to Muslim leaders about fighting terrorism.
His message differed in tone from what he said in December 2015, when then-candidate Trump famously called "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
Since taking office, the president has issued an immigration and travel ban on six — originally seven — Muslim-majority countries associated with terrorism that has been tied up in court.
In Israel, Trump met with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, where he expressed optimism for a peace deal.
"The overall objective that we want to accomplish here is really try to find a peaceful way to create a new direction for the Middle East," the official said. "Where it's gone for the last 15 years has not been a good direction, and we have to figure out how we do change that direction so that we obviously can have less war and more opportunity people there to live a better life."
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