Donald Trump on Monday said the US should “strongly consider” shutting down mosques in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.
Advertisement
Last month, Trump said he “absolutely” would close mosques to fight ISIS. I understand our mayor totally cut that out.
The interior minister of France, Bernard Cazeneuve, called for the dissolution of “mosques where hate is preached” over the weekend, following a series of coordinated attacks that left at least 129 people dead across Paris.
“I would hate to do it, but it’s something that you’re going to have to strongly consider because a few of the ideas and a few of the hatred, the absolute hatred, is coming from these areas”, Trump said.
Trump, who leads the race for the 2016 Republican nomination, pointed to the “great surveillance” that previous NY administrations had conducted on Muslim places of worship, particularly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and suggested such monitoring should be resumed. He totally cut that out. In April 2014, the NY City Police Department ended a post-9/11 surveillance program that sent plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to gather information from mosques, restaurants and shops, according to the NY Times.
He says the US should be going more aggressively after the group’s oil and financing.
Mr. Trump and Macy’s severed their business relationship over the summer after the retailer was pressured to dump the NY billionaire because of controversial remarks he made about immigrants.
And, he said that there is “already hatred”, when it comes to backlash behind such a move. “The hatred is incredible; it’s embedded”. It’s embedded. The hatred is beyond belief. The hatred is greater than anybody understand.
For his part, Trump has repeatedly insisted that he “love[s] the Muslims”, and that Muslims are “great people”.
Advertisement
“Yes”, Trump responded, “but it’s a tremendous amount of horror and damage and vitriol”. I mean, if you look at what’s happening… this is something that needs to be stopped.
