During a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa, Friday morning, the Republican presidential candidate told NBC News that he was for implementing a system that would require all American Muslims to register in a database to help prevent terrorism.
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In response to a question from NBC News Thursday night whether there should be a “database system that tracks Muslims”, Trump said “there should be a lot of systems beyond databases” and returned to his pet idea of building a wall across the USA border.
Kasich said the statement proved Trump was not worthy of becoming United States president.
On Friday, Trump deflected criticism of the remarks, saying in a tweet: ‘I didn’t suggest a database – a reporter did.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement Thursday condemning Trump for what the group described as “Islamophobic and unconstitutional” comments targeting American Muslims and Syrian refugees.
Jeb Bush called the idea “abhorrent”, drawing comparisons to the targeting of Jews during the Holocaust.
“It’s manipulating people’s angst and their fears”, he said. “That’s not strength, that’s weakness”.
John Kasich, who Trump attacked in a Twitter tirade late Thursday, said the Republican frontrunner is “trying to divide people” and could cost Republicans his home battleground state of Ohio.
“Donald Trump and Ben Carson are contributing to an already toxic environment”, said CAIR’s Robert McCaw.
Trump did not mention the concept of Muslim databases during a rally in SC Friday afternoon. Trump, who leads the Republican presidential field in opinion polls, has called for deporting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in America. “We know our current president is one”.
Hillary Clinton responded in a tweet, “This is shocking rhetoric”.
“We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely”.
(Video of the entire exchange is here.) An NBC reporter asks him “should there be a database that tracks the Muslims in this country?”
“My father was in World War II, and he fought to preserve America against what the Nazis were doing”, Mr Moline said.
But Carson would not rule out extra scrutiny for certain mosques in the USA, notably those where “there’s a lot of activity going on that’s radicalizing people”, he said.
“You talk about internment, you talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people, and that’s just wrong”, Bush told CNBC Friday.
Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist” and has said that he believes the greatest threat facing the country is global warming, and he linked climate change to unrest in the Middle East in the last Democratic debate.
“We’re going to have to do thing that we never did before”.
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Virtually all of the GOP candidates vying for the White House have taken aim at Donald Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled the bill for possible Senate consideration, though it’s unclear whether the chamber could get enough votes to override a veto by Obama, who opposes the measure.
