Republican frontrunner Donald Trump called Monday for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States, unleashing some of the most provocative and divisive remarks of his controversial presidential campaign.
The stunning statement followed last week’s mass shooting in California by a Muslim couple believed to have been radicalised by extremists, and landed with a thunderclap just as fellow presidential candidates were contemplating ways to improve national security.
His aides did not specify if the proposal would affect both tourists and immigrants, and did not say either if it would target American Muslims currently abroad.
In a rambling, 50-minute speech aboard the battleship USS Yorktown later Monday, Trump read part of his statement aloud, hardening the tone and saying the halt on Muslims entering the country should remain in place “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
“We have no choice,” Trump said, saying that radicals want to kill Americans.
“It’s going to get worse and worse. We’re going to have more World Trade Centres,” he said, referring to the deadly attacks on September 11, 2001.
Trump drew swift condemnation by presidential rivals and the White House, which denounced his call to bar Muslims as “totally contrary” to US values.
Trump’s campaign cited poll data allegedly showing “hatred toward Americans by large segments of the Muslim population.”
“Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine,” the billionaire real estate mogul, who is currently leading in opinion polls among likely Republican voters, said in the statement.
“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.”
Trump has been increasingly virulent in his remarks targeting Muslim Americans since the deadly Paris attacks, and again in the wake of last week’s shooting rampage in California, which left 14 dead and 21 wounded.
But his latest statement was particularly jarring, and it unleashed severe condemnation on Twitter, including from other Republicans running for president.
On Tuesday, Tuesday defended his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, calling it a temporary measure in a time of war.
Trump likened his proposal to those implemented by former US president Franklin Roosevelt against people of Japanese, Germans and Italian descent during World War II.
“What I’m doing is no different than FDR,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” programme in one of a round of heated television interviews where he defended his plan in the wake of last week’s California shooting spree by two Muslims who authorities said were radicalised.
“We have no choice but to do this,” he said, adding: “We have people that want to blow up our buildings, our cities. We have figure out what’s going on.”
He reiterated that the plan would be temporary, telling ABC that the ban would last until Congress acts on the issue.