US Election: Meet the Muslim planning to vote for Donald Trump

Ziyad Azeez, a 21-year-old student from New York who is studying in Washington DC, has said he is almost certain to support Trump as he votes for the first time in a Presidential election. He said while his views were ‘uncommon’, he was not alone in supporting the Republican candidate - pointing to a poll earlier this year which suggested 11 per cent of the nation’s 3.3 million Muslims were supported Trump. Mr Azeez said he was supportive of Trump’s refined position on ‘vetting’ - which has softened from calls for a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ in December to a proposal for a tougher new screening test for arrivals to the US and a ban on immigrants from countries with a ‘history of terror’. Mr Azeez said that as a registered Republican, he is supportive of much else that Trump says and believes him to be anti-terrorism rather than anti-Islam. He said: “My biggest issues are the Supreme Court, immigration, terrorism and the issue of political correctness. I don’t trust Hillary Clinton.” Mr Azeez admitted Trump had made mistakes, particularly in relation to his feud with the parents of Humayun Khan, an American Muslim soldier who died in Iraq in 2004. He said: “Trump shouldn’t have said anything after the Democratic convention and the Khan family speech there. I think he got it wrong when he said ‘Islam’ hates us’. “But I think Donald Trump is more focused on the terrorism issue. “When it comes to the vetting policy, I think that that is a good position, vetting people from parts of the world. He is anti-terrorism and takes a hardline stance on terrorism. That is where he is coming from.” He said in contrast he did not support Hillary Clinton’s approach to law and order or foreign policy. “With the Democratic party - the cops are wrong and the criminals are right,” he said. “Everything is upside down about the Democratic party. “I don’t want to live through eight years of Hillary Clinton, hearing about scandal after scandal. “Look at her record as Secretary of State - Libya, Iraq and Syria. She is more hawkish than President Obama - that is a very bad thing. People are tired of war, tired of unnecessary interventions.” Mr Azeez added: “I think Trump could pull this off. There will be a state that might cause a surprise. “I want to make my own vote count.”