Donald Trump’s speech to an evangelical conference in Washington Friday was disrupted by demonstrators who protested his remarks bashing the U.S. policy of accepting Syrian refugees.
After condemning “radical Islam,” in remarks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition summit Thursday in Washington, D.C., Trump bashed his general election rival Hillary Clinton because “she wants a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees to come into our country.”
Unrest could be heard from the audience in live video of the speech as a protester yelled, “Refugees are welcome here.” A few other protesters also began disrupting the event by holding signs and yelling, “Dump Trump.”
The protesters were ushered out of the event, being held at Washington’s Omni Shoreham hotel, according reporters there.
The crowd responded by chanting “USA, USA, USA,” and “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
Trump, meanwhile, said the protesters were “professional agitators,” while calling the interruption a “little freedom of speech.”
He continued to condemn Clinton for wanting to increase the amount of refugees accepted by the United States.
“Hillary will bring hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom have possible beliefs about people of different faiths and values, and some of whom absolutely and openly support terrorism in our country,” Trump said. “We don’t need that. We have enough problems. We have enough problems right now.”
