Trump quotes right-wing newspaper's anonymous source to make unsubstantiated claim about 'prayer mats' at border

Donald Trump has quoted a right-wing newspaper's anonymous source who made an entirely unsubstantiated claim that "prayer mats" had been found at the US-Mexico border.

In an apparent attempt to stir up Islamophobic sentiment in his ongoing effort to secure funding for his wall along the southern border, the president used an early morning tweet to refer to a story in conservative publication The Washington Examiner.

"Border rancher: 'We’ve found prayer rugs out here. It’s unreal.' Washington Examiner," he wrote, referring to the headline of the story before adding, "People coming across the Southern Border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise."

The tweet arrived as Mr Trump refuses to budge on his demands for $5.7bn to be included in the next federal spending bill to go towards his campaign promise of a wall stretching the entirety of the US-Mexico border — a battle that has spurred the longest government shutdown in American history. The newly-elected Democratic Congress has also refused to back down over its rejection of the president’s demands.

Mr Trump — who has regularly railed against major news outlets as the ‘fake news media’ and regularly downplays anonymous sources leaking information from his White House — faced immediate backlash over the apparent hypocrisy in sharing the unsubstantiated claims.

The controversial tweet was just the latest suggestion from the president that Muslims were flocking into the country from the nation’s southern border, following previous claims that terrorists and members of ISIS were included in the thousands of refugees and migrants forming caravans from Latin American countries to safely travel to the US.

“Ranchers and farmers near the US-Mexico border have been finding prayer rugs on their properties in recent months, according to one rancher who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by cartels who move the individuals,” the story begins, going on to explain that “mats are pieces of carpet that those of the Muslim faith kneel on as they worship.”

"There’s a lot of people coming in not just from Mexico," the anonymous rancher reportedly told the publication. "People, the general public, just don’t get the terrorist threats of that. That’s what’s really scary. You don’t know what’s coming across. We’ve found prayer rugs out here. It’s unreal. It’s not just Mexican nationals that are coming across."

The president has previously implored his supporters to avoid reading any articles attributing quotes to unnamed officials, writing on Twitter in August of last year, “Anytime you see ‘anonymous source,’ stop reading the story, it is fiction!”

The notion that ISIS or other terror groups could be operating near the US-Mexico border is a rightwing conspiracy theory that has been routinely debunked since the rumours became popular fodder amongst conservative circles beginning in 2014, when a Republican lawmaker took to Fox News to claim ISIS militants were being apprehended during border crossings.

Mr Trump’s tweet also arrived after a explosive report in BuzzFeed News claimed the president had instructed his longtime former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie during his Congressional testimony about a Trump Tower deal in Moscow he was reportedly exploring throughout the 2016 presidential campaign.

Later on Friday morning, the president tweeted, “Another big Caravan heading our way. Very hard to stop without a wall!”