Meet Trump’s Biggest Muslim Supporter

CLEVELAND — Sajid Tarar is one of Donald Trump’s most prominent Muslim supporters, but he sounds like any other Trump backer when he rails against the Washington Establishment.

“I’m one of the angry American voters at the non-working Washington, D.C.,” Tarar told LifeZette after giving the benediction to close the second day of the Republican National Convention. “I’m sick of these traditional politicians.”

“I’m one of the angry American voters at the non-working Washington, D.C. I’m sick of these traditional politicians.”

Tarar does not fit the stereotypical Trump voter. He’s not white. He’s not Christian. He wasn’t even born in the United States. The 52-year-old native of Pakistan, who founded Muslim Americans for Trump, said he has received hate mail and even death threats from all over the world because of his stance.

Sporting a slight Pakistani accent, Tarar expressed exasperation with President Obama’s refusal to identify and speak plainly about radical extremists within Islam. Obama has said such talk would drive away moderate Muslims and make fighting terrorism harder.

He’s wrong, Tarar said.

“We have a nightmare,” he said. “The president calls ISIS the JV team. Know that the JV team has taken over half of the Middle East.”

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Tarar said Obama’s only achievement is placing 47 million Americans on food stamps.

“He’s clueless,” he said. “We have gone backward … And he was making fun of Donald Trump’s foreign policy experience?”

Tarar, who said the organization he just now is building in earnest has more than 400 “sympathizers,” has a classic immigrant’s story. He said he already had a law degree in Pakistan, following his father and grandfather, when he came to the United States 30 years ago. He earned a second law degree in the United States and now tends to a real estate business in the Baltimore area and works with nonprofits dedicated to helping senior citizens and the developmentally disabled.

Tarar said he is grateful to America but dismayed at its direction.

“This is not the America I came to,” he said.

Tarar said he is troubled that Democrat Hillary Clinton wants to build her presidency on top of Obama’s foundation.

“Barack Obama doesn’t have a foundation,” he said.

Tarar is no more eager to welcome tens of thousands of his fellow Muslims coming from refugee camps than most Trump supporters. And his reasons are the same as other critics of Obama’s refugee program.

“How will you vet them?” he asked. “Why don’t they go to the Muslim nations next door?”

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Polls suggest Trump is struggling with immigrants, and his proposal to block Muslims from high-risk countries from entering the country has invited scorn from Trump’s detractors. A survey conducted in March by the Council on American-Islamic Relations suggested that 11 percent of Muslims would vote for the New York billionaire.

But Tarar said he thinks Trump will perform better at the polls among Muslims than most observers believe. He said Trump is working to clarify his positions, and he added that his own organization is getting a more polite hearing from other Muslims.

“Now, people are listening,” he said. “Before, they were ignoring us.”

Tarar said he wants to fight to preserve the America he came to. He spoke with pride about the success of Muslim assimilation. He said Muslims in America are well-educated — second only to Jewish-Americans, he says — and integrate to a degree that often is not the case in Europe.

“We are different than European Muslims,” he said. “They are still living in the ghettos.”