(Reuters)
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday (December 9) called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States in the most dramatic response by a candidate yet to last week’s shooting spree by two Muslims who the FBI said were radicalized.
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.
In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Trump told a rally that mosques in the United States should also be scrutinized. “We have to look at mosques, we have no choice, we have to see what’s happening, because something is happening in there…man, there’s anger, there’s anger and we have to know about it.”
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.
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.
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, who frequently uses racially charged rhetoric, called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the country “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
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.
Trump’s statement followed the massacre last week of 14 people in San Bernardino, slain in a hail of bullets by a Muslim couple that the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday had been radicalized.
