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 "We have no choice," Trump said at a rally in South Carolina,
warning of more Sept. 11-style attacks if stern measures are not
taken.
Trump's statement on "preventing Muslim immigration" drew swift and
fierce blowback from many directions, including the White House,
rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Democratic
presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican former Vice
President Dick Cheney, who said the idea "goes against everything we
stand for and believe in."
"Donald Trump is unhinged. His 'policy' proposals are not serious,"
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said in a tweet.
Other social media reaction led hashtags such as #racism, #fascism
and #bigot to trend heavily.
Withering reaction also came from Ohio Governor John Kasich, Senator
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Trump, the billionaire developer and former reality TV star who
frequently uses racially charged rhetoric, called for a complete
shutdown of Muslims entering the United States "until our country's
representatives can figure out what is going on."
 "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 said.
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, asked in an email if the
shutdown would apply specifically to immigration or more broadly to
student visas, tourists and other travelers to the United States,
replied: “Everyone.”
In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Trump dismissed his critics. He
told a rally that mosques in the United States should also be
scrutinized. "We have to see what's happening," he said.
Trump went farther than other Republican candidates, who have called
for a suspension of a plan by President Barack Obama to bring into
the United States as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees fleeing their
country's civil war and Islamic State militants.
The United Nations refugee agency said such rhetoric was harming
that resettlement program. The International Organization for
Migration responded to Trump's comments by saying any discrimination
based on religion went against all international accords on dealing
with refugees.
Trump's remarks followed last week's massacre in San Bernardino,
California, by a Muslim couple. The husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, was
U.S.-born. The wife, Tashfeen Malik, was born in Pakistan and came
to the United States from Saudi Arabia. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation said on Monday the couple had been radicalized.
REACTIONS FROM "REPREHENSIBLE" TO "GO TRUMP"
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton tweeted that
Trump's idea was "reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive." Keywords
trending on social media after Trump's statement included Hitler,
shutdown and immigration.
But conservative pundit Ann Coulter wrote "GO TRUMP, GO!" on the
social media site.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, blasted Trump.
“This is outrageous coming from someone who wants to assume the
highest office in the land. It is reckless and simply un-American.
Donald Trump sounds more like a leader of a lynch mob than a great
nation like ours," Awad said.
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White House spokesman Josh Earnest told MSNBC that Trump is "seeking
to tap into a darker side, a darker element, and try to play on
people's fears in order to build support for his campaign."
Obama on Sunday night in an Oval Office address called on Americans
to be tolerant of fellow citizens regardless of their religion.
Trump's aim is to bolster his position among conservative voters who
have kept him atop opinion polls of Republican voters for months, to
the point that establishment Republicans fret he could win the
nomination and do so poorly in the general election next November
that Republicans could not only lose the White House but also
control of Congress.
Whether Trump will pay a price for the move is unclear. He has shown
a proclivity toward insulting people with no penalty, from saying a
storied Vietnam veteran, Senator John McCain, is not a hero to
blasting Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found stark differences between
Republicans and Democrats in how they view Muslims. The poll, which
was conducted after last week's San Bernardino, California, attacks,
found that 69 percent of Republicans expressed at least some fears
of Muslims, compared with 39 percent of Democrats.
Trump said in an interview on Fox News that his proposal would not
prevent Muslims who are serving overseas in the U.S. military from
returning and would not apply to people already living in the
country, "except that we have to be vigilant," he said.
To support his proposal, Trump pointed to data from the conservative
think-tank Center for Security Policy indicating that a quarter of
Muslims in a poll thought violence against Americans was justified.
The center's president, Frank Gaffney Jr., has been critical of
Muslims in America, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil
rights group, calls him “one of America’s most notorious
Islamaphobes.”
South Carolina's Graham tweeted that Trump has "gone from making
absurd comments to being downright dangerous with his bombastic
rhetoric."
Ohio's Kasich said: "This is just more of the outrageous
divisiveness that characterizes his every breath and another reason
why he is entirely unsuited to lead the United States."
A spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, Doug
Watts, said Carson did not believe that religion should be a litmus
test for entry to the country but said everyone visiting the United
States should be monitored during their stay, saying that is the
case in many countries.
(Additional reporting by Emily Flitter in New York and Alana Wise,
Ginger Gibson and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Jonathan
Oatis and Leslie Adler)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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