Trump's latest offering: 'Islam hates us'

After a brief lull in Donald Trump's moronic statements about Islam and Muslim, the Republican presidential front-runner decided to outdo himself by declaring that Islam hates the West.

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper that aired Wednesday night, Trump was asked whether he thinks Islam is at war with the West.

"I think Islam hates us," Trump responded. "There's a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us."

The former reality TV star was also asked whether he thought there was a "war between the West and radical Islam" or "war between the West and Islam itself".

He replied: "It's radical, but it's very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who."

Following the interview, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights group called on Trump to apologise for his comments on Thursday.

"Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric does not reflect leadership, but instead reflects a bigoted mindset that only serves to divide our nation and the world," Nihad Awad, the group's national executive director said in a statement.

However, given his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United State and hesitation to disavow the racist Ku Klux Klan, it is unlikely that Trump would retract his bigoted statement.

Also on Thursday, US President Barack Obama blamed the Republican establishment and right-wing media for creating the conditions for the rise of Trump.

"And so what you're seeing within the Republican party is, to some degree, all those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive," said Obama during a joint press conference with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

The billionaire who discussed the size of his penis in an internationally televised presidential debate last week is only a symptom of the deterioration of American political rhetoric.

His latest comments will unlikely hurt him in the polls or lose him the support of his equally bigoted fans, as a YouGov/Economist poll found that one in five Trump supporters oppose the abolition of slavery. Let's think about that for a minute. 

Meanwhile, Twitter users intent on fighting hate with humour and facts responded with #IThinkIslamHatesUs.