Bob Bennett spent his last weeks on Earth apologizing to Muslim Americans for Donald Trump’s remarks about the religion, according to a report published late Wednesday.
Family members of the former Republican senator from Utah, who died May 4, said Bennett had tried to meet with Muslim patients during his inpatient time at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C.
“Were there any Muslims in the hospital?” Bennett asked his wife, Joyce, and son, Jim. “I’d love to go up to every single one of them to thank them for being in this country, and apologize to them on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump.”
Bennett suffered a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He took a turn for the worse in April when he had a stroke. In the final days of his life, the son recalled his father — a lifetime Mormon — was focused on making reparations for Trump’s proposed plan to pause Muslim immigration until the connection between the religion and the Islamic State could be determined.
“In the last days of his life this was an issue that was pressing in his mind … disgust for Donald Trump’s xenophobia,” Jim Bennett said. “At the end of his life he was preoccupied with getting things done that he had felt was left undone.”
Bennett’s wife cited an occasion in December when her husband had walked up to a woman wearing a hijab in an airport.
“He would go to people with the hijab [on] and tell them he was glad they were in America, and they were welcome here,” his wife said. “He wanted to apologize on behalf of the Republican Party.”
