A video released by al-Qaeda’s Somalia-based affiliate al-Shabaab on Twitter on Friday, in which it appeals to American blacks and Muslims to join the group, features a clip of United States presidential hopeful Donald Trump urging for Muslims to be banned from entering the country, Associated Press reported. It includes his proposal for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” to protect the country, which had drawn severe criticism. Trump shrugged off his appearing in the video, and said, "I have to say what I have to say."

The 51-minute recruitment video depicts the US as a country that promotes racism against blacks and persecutes Muslims and presents radical Islam as the solution. Trump’s quotes are bracketed by a recorded speech from Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a prominent English-language al-Qaeda recruiter who was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011, in which he had warned that the US would turn against its Muslims.

A deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration, Ben Rhodes, declined to comment on Trump’s remarks, but said the administration had always cautioned against making statements indicating that the US is against Islam. “The terrorists want us to act like we’re at war with Islam. That’s how they recruit people. To defeat terrorists, we need to kill terrorists on the battlefield, but we also need to defeat this narrative that allows them to recruit people,” he said.