Thread: Donald Trump Deflects Withering Fire on Muslim Plan

Donald Trump Deflects Withering Fire on Muslim Plan

By MAGGIE HABERMAN DEC. 8, 2015

Repudiated across much of the political spectrum but defended on conservative talk radio, Donald J. Trump on Tuesday stood by his call to block all Muslims from entering the United States. He cast it as a temporary move in response to terrorism and invoked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s authorization of the detention of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during World War II as precedent.

Critics including both the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, a Republican, and the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, a Democrat, assailed Mr. Trump’s proposal as self-defeating and un-American.

“Tell Donald Trump: Hate is not an American value,” Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter. The “super PAC” supporting Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, unveiled its first ad attacking Mr. Trump, and the White House said Mr. Trump had disqualified himself from serving as president.

But the castigation was far from unanimous: Mr. Trump was applauded by some conservative commentators, who said he reflected the electorate’s views more honestly than the party’s leaders. “Anyone who thinks @realDonaldTrump comments will hurt him don’t know the temperature of the American ppl,” the radio host Laura Ingraham wrote on Twitter.

Senator Ted Cruz, who is vying for much the same base of support that Mr. Trump now enjoys, disavowed his proposal but pointedly declined to join in the scolding. “I commend Donald Trump for standing up and focusing America’s attention on the need to secure our borders,” Mr. Cruz said at the Capitol.

And former Senator Rick Santorum, the winner of the 2012 Iowa caucus, seemed to embrace Mr. Trump’s impulse but differed on the details. “I’ve proposed actual concrete things and immigration law that would have — not the effect of banning all Muslims, but a lot of them because we need to get rid of the visa lottery system, which is the way in which a lot of radicals have come into this country,” he said on Sirius XM’s “Breitbart News Daily.”

Mr. Trump, who has set the tone in a Republican presidential race he has led for months, defended and expanded upon his proposal in a string of television interviews Tuesday morning.

In a sometimes tense exchange with Joe Scarborough on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe,” he insisted that fears of terrorism had made policing difficult in places like London and in Paris, the site of the Islamic State attacks on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people.

“Paris is no longer the same city it was,” he said, before adding, without citing any evidence: “They have sections in Paris that are radicalized where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified. The police refuse to go in there. We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives.”

Mr. Trump’s statement about Paris has no basis in fact: There are no districts there or outside Paris where the police have said they are unwilling to go. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, meanwhile, said that Mr. Trump’s claim about his city was “complete and utter nonsense.” Saying crime was falling in London and New York, he added: “The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

In the same MSNBC interview, Mr. Trump cited Roosevelt’s classification of thousands of Japanese, Germans and Italians living in the United States during the war as “enemy aliens.” He said he was not endorsing something as drastic as the camps where American citizens of Japanese descent were interned. Instead, he referred to three proclamations by which Roosevelt authorized government detention of immigrants, and which led to the internment of thousands of noncitizen Japanese, Germans and Italians.

“This is a president highly respected by all; he did the same thing,” Mr. Trump said. The nation was at war in the 1940s, he said, and it is now “at war with radical Islam.”

On ABC, Mr. Trump clarified that his proposal would not apply to United States citizens. “If a person is a Muslim, goes overseas and comes back, they can come back,” he said. “They’re a citizen. That’s different. But we have to figure things out.”

There was sweeping criticism of Mr. Trump’s remarks from European officials and from Democrats.

“The fact is that what Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president, and for Republican candidates for president to stand by their pledge to support Mr. Trump, that in and of itself is disqualifying,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters at his daily briefing.

Mr. Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, went further. “Trump is saying out loud what other Republicans merely suggest,” he said on the Senate floor.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told Bloomberg News on Tuesday evening that because of Mr. Trump’s “dangerous” comments, if he wins the nomination Mrs. Clinton will “win in a walk.”

Mr. Trump’s proposal on Monday came hours after a poll was released showing that Mr. Cruz had overtaken him for the lead in Iowa, and a day after President Obama gave a rare Oval Office address to discuss fears of terrorism after the attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino, Calif. — a speech Republicans criticized as insufficiently reassuring.

A poll asserting that 25 percent of Muslim Americans condone acts of violence against other Americans was from a “very highly respected group of people.”

“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Mr. Trump wrote in a statement.

It was the latest controversy from a candidate whose campaign has been marked by harsh comments about some immigrant groups since he entered the race in June. Despite repeated and often hopeful predictions from his rivals and political analysts that his supporters would abandon him, such remarks have appeared to cleave Mr. Trump’s backers closer to him.

“We have to get a hand around a very serious problem,” Mr. Trump said on MSNBC. “And it’s getting worse. And you will have more World Trade Centers and you will have more, bigger than the World Trade Center, if we don’t toughen up, smarten up, and use our heads.”

Reaction from Republicans was mixed.

The television ad from Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Mr. Bush, was its first mocking Mr. Trump, calling him too “impulsive and reckless” for the Oval Office. But it muted the force of the blow by also criticizing two other primary contenders, Mr. Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio. The ad did not specifically cite Mr. Trump’s proposed Muslim ban.

Many Republican leaders have struggled with how to deal with Mr. Trump, who has tapped into a deep well of anger and frustration among voters who polls show have lost trust in their elected officials and in many institutions. But they are also concerned about the impact that Mr. Trump will have on the party’s chances of recapturing the White House.

Some spoke out, saying his ideas needed to be rejected.

“This is not conservatism,” said Mr. Ryan, the House speaker and the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2012. “What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.”

“Some of our best and biggest allies in this struggle and fight against radical Islamic terror are Muslims, the vast, vast, vast majority of whom are people who believe in pluralism, freedom, democracy, individual rights,” Mr. Ryan said.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in a radio interview late Monday that “this whole notion that somehow we need to say ‘no more Muslims’ and just ban a whole religion goes against everything we stand for and believe in.” And the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, noted that the idea would bar American allies like King Abdullah of Jordan from visiting the country, calling it “completely and totally unworkable.”

Correction: December 8, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. He is the minority leader, not the majority leader.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/us...lims.html?_r=0

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in a radio interview late Monday that “this whole notion that somehow we need to say ‘no more Muslims’ and just ban a whole religion goes against everything we stand for and believe in.” And the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, noted that the idea would bar American allies like King Abdullah of Jordan from visiting the country, calling it “completely and totally unworkable.”

This just shows how totally stupid and ignorant our leadership has been.

Really, Mitch? You really think that Trump's proposal against Muslim immigration applied to official diplomats? Since when are foreign leaders visiting the United States on official business given green cards and classified as "immigrants"?

You foolish foolish man. No wonder nothing of consequence or benefit to the American People has occurred during your entire tenure as US Senator.

And today, Rubio, who has never had an original thought also brought up the issue of the King of Jordan and his son who attends Harvard University claiming but what about the King's son attending college? Under Trump's plan he wouldn't be able to attend Harvard.

Well, so what? Tell him to go to Oxford and finish up his education. But perhaps because his father is a diplomat, perhaps the families of official diplomats are excluded from the ban. Did you ask Trump what about diplomats and their families? To my knowledge, diplomats are handled by the US State Department and are covered by a different set of laws than immigrants managed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Even if they're not, so what? Who cares? The son of the King of Jordan is not our responsibility. His children are no more important than American children, less so in our eyes. Our responsibility is to American citizens, first and foremost. Tell him to go to Oxford or build a university in Jordan, or sit out until terrorism is over, whatever. The last thing in the world that Americans need to concern themselves with or arrange our policies around is the children of foreign diplomats. Right? Not our issue, not our problem. Hell, use your wealth to buy him some good tutors. WE DON'T CARE.

Either way, Rubio and McConnell just showed their colors on who is important to them, Kings of other countries and their children, not you or your children.

They don't want Mr Trump to be president because he is not in their covert globalist group and will not follow their agendas...open borders, more immigrants, amnesty, quadruple foreign worker visas and many more muslims regardless of how dangerous and schizo they are. 179,000 illegal criminals are on the loose and they let that happen. Drug cartels in every state addicting our youth to dangerous drugs.

For big business profits - the more people, the more consumers, they will destroy America and it is treasonous.

Bravo Judy!

Excellent post that debunks the whole "We can't do anything to protect ourselves because that would be 'un America'" crap they have been selling.

Again excellent post Judy.

Originally Posted by csarbww

Bravo Judy!

Excellent post that debunks the whole "We can't do anything to protect ourselves because that would be 'un America'" crap they have been selling.

Again excellent post Judy.

Thank you, csarbww!

This quote is from the posted article: “Paris is no longer the same city it was,'he said, before adding, without citing any evidence:' “They have sections in Paris that are radicalized where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified. The police refuse to go in there. We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives.”

Can any person not drunk and high on drugs at the time believe this crap? It is common knowledge that there are large areas in every European country where Muslim predominate and the police no longer have any ability to enforce the countries laws. It is known by every Europe who lives near these Muslim communities that what Trump has said is true. What a despicable blatant lie to write that paragraph as if there were any doubt about the truth of what Trump has said.

Pay attention patriots this is what we are dealing with.

Originally Posted by csarbww

This quote is from the posted article: “Paris is no longer the same city it was,” he said, before adding, without citing any evidence: “They have sections in Paris that are radicalized where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified. The police refuse to go in there. We have places in London and other places that are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives.”

Can any person not drunk and high on drugs at the time believe this crap? It is common knowledge that there are large areas in every country under Muslim control where the police no longer have any ability to enforce the countries laws? It is known by every Europe who lives there these Muslim communities that what Trump has said is true. What a despicable blatant lie to write that paragraph as if there were any doubt about the truth of what Trump has said.

Pay attention patriots this is what we are dealing with.

The Mayor of London definitely lied to the press. This just does to show that the Brits are under the siege of their globalist government under Cameron.