The late Sen. Bob Bennett — whom it was revealed this week made a
dramatic deathbed apology to Muslims for Donald Trump and the Republican Party's support of him — was obsessed with getting that heartfelt message out in the final days of his life, Bennett's son says.
"He was concerned of a number of things and it was startling to me. In the hospital he was talking to me and my mother and said, 'Are there any Muslims in the hospital?' and I said, 'Sure there are dad,"' Jim Bennett told "Andrea Mitchell Reports" Friday on NBC.
"He said, 'I would like go to up and apologize to everyone on behalf of the Republican Party, apologize for Trump. He would bring it up."
"That was something that was a deep concern to him not just in his dying days but the last few months of his life."
Trump has alienated many with his vow to ban Muslims from the United States in a bid to get a grip on terrorists.
Bennett, a straight-shooting Utah Republican and thorn in the side of tea party activists, died May 4 following a stroke and a battle with pancreatic cancer.
The former senator apparently had been so concerned about making his feelings known about the issue, he even approached Muslims to speak with them.
"My mother talks about him coming home for Christmas in Salt Lake City and seeing a woman at the airport who he went up to [and said] 'I would like to apologize on behalf of the Republican Party.' This was a concern to him even before the stroke that ended up and taking his life," his son said.
"There were hot buttons that really, he really got passionate about and this is one of them. This is the top of the list. When he was in the Senate, immigration reforms were very important to him and the rhetoric of building the [U.S.-Mexico border] wall and all that kind of thing rubbed him the wrong way."
Jim Bennett said his father's Mormon upbringing was likely instrumental in his quest to apologize.
"The church has put a tremendous amount of focus on support or refugees. The general conversation … [was] reaching out to refugees. My father felt strongly that this was something that was essential for everybody to do," he said.
"I think he linked that … need to help refugees with the need to be inclusive to Muslims. I think [it was] his distaste for the kind of rhetoric of the Trump campaign and Trump himself over the course of the last few months."
As a senator, his son said, Bob Bennett was proud to call himself a lifelong Republican.
"He stood up and said, 'I have been a Republican all his life. The tea party is the one that calls me the RINO [Republican in Name Only]. They're the RINO, I have been a Republican all my life.'''
Bennett's was a popular three-term senator who was first elected in 1992.
"He was widely beloved for his gentlemanly demeanor, status in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and support for local entrepreneurs,"
The Washington Times said.
Bennett's apology to Muslims was first reported by The Daily Beast.
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