A Reuters/Ipsos poll after the attack found 33 percent of Republicans think he is best suited to address terrorism, leading the field.
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By Friday, though, he appeared to pull back slightly from the idea. He refused to go further Friday when asked again about Trump’s idea, reiterating his belief that reporters just want to see the two duke it out.
“I want surveillance of these people and of certain mosques”, the front-running Trump said at a campaign event in Birmingham, Ala. He was not asked specifically if he disavowed a general registry for Muslims living in the country, and he did not condemn the idea on his own. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can.
Donald Trump took to social media to clarify comments he made to a reporter about the suggestion of a database for Muslims. A few things we won’t tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. “Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy”.
He also said “there should be a lot of systems beyond databases” when the reporter asked him whether he would implement a Muslim identification system.
Trump will continue his campaign stops this coming week and he said he’s got the strength and stamina to keep going. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh said the furor provoked by the reports of a “Muslim registry” will not sink Trump.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League in NY called Trump’s proposal “deeply troubling and reminiscent of darker days in American history when others were singled out for scapegoating”.
Trump’s seemingly serious consideration for the idea of treating an entire religious group with suspicion created the risk of a new set of problems for a party already struggling to appeal beyond its largely white political base.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim rights group, said the rest of the Republican presidential field should say publicly whether they would close mosques, create a database of Muslims or require Muslims to carry a special ID card.
After several statements this week indicating s of Muslims, Republican presidential candidate and business mogul Donald Trump tried to walk back his comments in a slightly confusing tweet Friday afternoon. Trump says what everybody else is thinking, said the person. Republicans have vacillated in their handling of other inflammatory comments from the bellicose billionaire, wary of alienating the front-runner’s supporters but also increasingly concerned that he’s managed to maintain his grip on the GOP race deep into the fall. I will not do it.
Mr. Trump, however, takes the prize for odious bloviation.
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“We expected a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric in the presidential election cycle, but we didn’t realise it would get this bad”, he said.
