The latest on what presidential candidates are saying about ways to counter the terrorism threat in the United States. He said during an interview with MSNBS last week that the USA should at least monitor and possibly close a few mosques in the country – a view he repeated at Saturday’s rally. “I want surveillance of these people”.
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On the heels of a media feeding frenzy over his reply to a reporter’s question about the possibility of setting up databases of Muslim Americans, Trump made his surveillance statement to a crowd of supporters in Birmingham, Alabama. And I don’t care. Are you ready for this, folks? Are you ready? Oh, they’re gonna make such a big deal.
In the Washington Post/ABC News survey, 52% of respondents said the attribute most important to them personally in selecting a candidate was that the person would bring change needed to Washington, while 28% said they prefer the most honest candidate and 11% said experience is most important. Told that Trump had proposed tracking Muslims already in the United States, Carson added that, “hopefully, we already have a database on every citizen who is already here”.
Carson says he would be in favor of monitoring “a mosque or any church or any organization or any school or any press corps where there was a lot radicalization and things that were anti-American”. “If that’s okay”, he continued. “I want to have him in jail – that’s what I want”. “We have to surveil the mosques”.
In 2012, Muslim leaders in New Jersey filed a lawsuit against the NYPD for its surveillance in the Garden State.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a town hall meeting at the Ben Johnson Arena on the Wofford College campus, Friday, November 20, 2015, in Spartanburg, S.C.
Trump’s remarks Saturday came two days after he drew heat for appearing to support the idea of forcing Muslims in the U.S.to register in a database – a concept denounced by Republican opponents, Democrats, and advocacy groups.
A few critics said the idea is similar to a tactic used by the Nazis on Jewish residents in Germany during the Holocaust, and that it would violate religious freedom protected under the U.S. Constitution.
“I didn’t suggest a database – a reporter did”, Trump tweeted Friday.
Trump’s speech took lots of twists and turns and he didn’t really focus on one thing.
The rebukes came Friday after Trump voiced support for a mandatory database for Muslims in the USA while campaigning in Iowa the previous day.
Trump, though, said he sees waterboarding as a useful counterbalance to the violent murders committed by Islamic State. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques”.
Trump said Saturday he didn’t properly hear the question posed to him by the NBC News reporter on Thursday, who he referred to as “a little wise guy” and whose question he said he thought was about building a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
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“I think we should have a database on everybody who comes into this country”, Carson said in Concord, New Hampshire.
