Trump thinks Islamist terrorists should be executed with pigs' blood covered bullets

Hours after the horrific Barcelona terrorist attack, Donald Trump suggested that Islamic terrorists should be executed with bullets soaked in pigs' blood, praising a discredited story of a 20th-century atrocity, Time reported. 

According to the American publication, the U.S. President appeared to be referring to a false story he had told before in 2016. 

Trump's version of the story claims "that during the Moro rebellion in the Philippines between 1901 and 1913, U.S. Gen. John Pershing executed Muslim insurgents with bullets dipped in pig's blood."

Problem is, the story has widely been debunked by historians and experts who  "have always been skeptical the practice was even widespread or directly authorized or ordered by Pershing." 

Speaking to Politifact, Brian McAllister Linn, a Texas A&M University historian and author of Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940, said: 

"This story is a fabrication and has long been discredited,... I am amazed it is still making the rounds."

According to Politifact, narratives related to the story the U.S. President keeps referring to, have been proven false by historians who studied Pershing's activities in the Moro province from 1909 to 1913. 

While the "idea that pig’s blood could serve as a weapon against Muslims has been around in popular culture for decades," and was also written about in one of Pershing's memoirs, "there is no evidence that Pershing himself committed these acts."

In fact, a few historians noted that "Pershing pursued a less brutal approach to 'pacifying' the rebels in the southern Philippines than Leonard Wood, one of his predecessors."

Speaking to Politifact, historians said that regardless of the debate over the story, "the idea that Pershing’s actions stopped 'radical Islamic terror' was actually the bigger problem with Trump’s parable."

Soon after Trump posted the ridiculously offensive tweet, which is a latest addition to a growing repertoire, people responded with anger, shock, and naturally, sarcasm.