It doesn ' t . but it ' s consistent with my strategic salesman hypothesisA big part of persuasion is including the visual aspect . Thousands of people celebrating 911 in the streets is visual . A big wall is visual . Saying all this crazy stuff puts it in peoples minds better . Especially if he can get the media to report on it like it was some gaffe . You ' ll notice this over and over again when you look back . He says this outrageous thing and now the media consistently spreads the outrageous thing he said . Even if the media says this is totally false , people still have the powerful image of muslims celebrating 911 in the street . It might even make them feel afraid picturing that . So yeah it ' s another example of persuasion which does not rely on facts or reality , mostly emotions .