Franklin Roosevelt's Granddaughter Castigates Trump

Granddaughter calls the internment of Japanese Americans was driven by fear

A granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt chastised Donald Trump for invoking the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to defend his plan to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

"For Donald Trump to cite my grandfather and internment as a defense of his own intolerant and divisive agenda is reprehensible," said the granddaughter, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, chairwoman of the board of the Roosevelt Institute, on Thursday. "The internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II is a sad part of our history and, as a part of my grandfather's administration, a terrible political decision driven by fear."

On Monday, Trump released a statement saying that he was "calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."

The GOP frontrunner for the presidential nomination said his plan was a temporary one and represented common sense and he compared it to "presidential proclamations" made by President Roosevelt.

Asked on MSNBC's Morning Joe Tuesday whether his proposal went against American values, he said, "No, because FDR did it."

In her statement, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt said that Japanese Americans, who were loyal citizens and who served bravely in the U.S. military, were scarred by being denied dignity and the respect of their own country.

"As a nation, internment weakened us all," she said. "It is a tragic reminder of what happens when we allow fear and hysteria to trump our values."

Trump has been widely condemned for his proposal, by Democrats but also by some Republicans. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the proposal disqualified Trump from the race. GOP leaders denounced the plan as anti-American.

"What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it's not what this country stands for," House Speaker Paul Ryan said.

But almost two-thirds of likely Republican primary voters said they supported temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States, according to a Bloomberg Politics/Purple Strategies PulsePoll. More than a third said it would make them more likely to vote for Trump, the poll found.

A New York Times/CBS News poll said Thursday two-thirds of Americans were concerned or frightened at the thought of Trump's candidacy.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt said that historians and leaders across the political spectrum agreed that interning Japanese Americans was a violation of basic human rights and a mistake that detracted from her grandfather's efforts to rescue the American economy and build the foundation of the country's middle class.

"My grandmother, Eleanor, spoke out publicly against the policy immediately and during its implementation," she said. "Internment was wrong then and any effort to discriminate against a group of people based on their race or religion is wrong today."

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