Donald Trump will meet Monday in NY with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Republican presidential candidate’s first meeting with a leader from the Muslim world.
Advertisement
“I don’t want to comment on whom I’m meeting with”, Trump told “Fox & Friends” in a phone interview Monday morning. “But I don’t want to comment specifically on who but a couple of people are coming over”, the Republican presidential candidate said.
The meeting was reported by Reuters.
Clinton, who faces Trump in the November 8 election, announced last week that she would meet both with Sisi and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko in bilateral sessions expected to take place late on Monday. The two gave a joint press conference afterward, but Trump faced criticism when it was revealed he failed to press Pena Nieto on making Mexico pay for the wall during their private meeting.
Clinton’s campaign announced last week that she would meet with Sisi and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, among other world leaders, during the United Nations assembly.
“Let’s put it this way, it will be a very interesting day or two”, Trump added.
For Trump, a NY real estate magnate and reality-TV show host who has never held political office, it marks the second time in recent weeks he has tried to burnish his foreign-policy credentials to compete with Clinton, the former Secretary of State under President Barack Obama and a U.S. Senator from NY.
The Republican nominee, however, said in his major foreign policy address last month that he plans to partner with Sisi and other Arab leaders who recognize that “this ideology of death [radical Islam] must be extinguished”.
Trump has called for a ban on Muslims entering the USA and his later statements that he would temporarily bar immigrants from countries linked to terrorism.
Advertisement
Those include Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
