Donald Trump on Monday called for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Here’s the full statement:
The comments come as Trump and his fellow GOP hopefuls have taken an increasingly aggressive view toward Muslims. Trump had previously suggested that it might be necessary to close down mosques in the United States and increase domestic surveillance of American Muslims, possibly by creating a mandatory government database to track them. His foreign policy plan, meanwhile, calls for “bombing the shit” out of ISIS, even—and perhaps especially—if such an assault would kill their families.
I’ll have more analysis of Trump’s proposal—along with the GOP’s general vilifying of Muslims—later. [Update 8:15 p.m.: Here’s the follow-up post, in which I explain how Trump’s disgusting proposal is pretty much the logical conclusion to the GOP’s illogical anti-Muslim bluster.] For now, though, it’s worth noting that the Center for Security Policy has a history of controversy. The group’s president, Frank Gaffney, is somewhat of a birther and has voiced suspicions that Grover Norquist is a secret mole for the Muslim Brotherhood. The FBI, meanwhile, has taken issue with the veracity of his group’s work in the past.
Read more of Slate’s coverage of the GOP primary.
