'We're all Crusaders now': Matthews calls Trump Muslim ban a declaration of 'war between east and west'

Chris Matthews ripped into Donald Trump’s executive order restricting travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, insisting the decision fulfilled Osama bin Laden’s vision of war between the east and the west.

“Consider the casualties of this travel ban,” Matthews began on Monday’s episode of Hardball. “Everyone in the world knows it’s directed at people of one religion. Our friends know and are hurt by it in so many ways. Our enemies know and are excited by it knowing it will humiliate our friends, will stir terrorist recruitment around the world and trigger others to radicalize.”

“Think of what this announcement means from America, and what it’s telling people around the world,” he continued. “If you’re an American of the Islamic faith, try explaining this to your children, if you’re an American of the Islamic faith serving in the United State military, do you have a strong confidence right now this is not a war against your religion?”

Matthews wondered if Muslims growing up in America “feel more or less comfortable, or more or less welcome, or more or less an American,” or at least a “Trump kind of American?”

As for the enemies of the United States, Matthews wondered if they feel emboldened after learning that their “number one enemy in the world” has just “done you the favor of declaring this a war between east and west.”

“Isn’t this what you dream of?” Matthews asked.

Later during the panel, Huffington Post global editorial director Howard Fineman told Matthews that the executive order “means that Osama Bin Laden’s whole theory of a war of the west on Islam now gains great credence thanks to what Donald Trump just did.”

“We’re all crusaders now,” Mathews replied.

“We are the crusaders officially, in the eyes of Islam,” Fineman concurred. “At least that’s what Osama said, that’s what Donald Trump has done. This is the reaction that Osama bin Laden himself would have prayed for.”

Watch the video below, via MSNBC: