Trump revives talk of banning Muslims after Orlando attack
MANCHESTER, N.H. — In his first formal remarks since Sunday’s deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Donald Trump repeated his call to bar Muslims from immigrating to the United States and added a promise to suspend immigration from any country with a “proven history of terrorism” against the United States, Europe or other allies. It wasn’t clear if this language was meant to broaden the category of foreigners Trump wants to keep out of the country, and his campaign declined to elaborate.
The presumptive Republican nominee used the attack, which left 50 people dead, including the killer, as ammunition for accusing President Obama and his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, of putting the nation at risk with “deadly ignorance” about the threat of radical Islam.
“They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety and above all else,” Trump declared in a speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “I refuse to be politically correct.”
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The speech had been initially planned as a way for Trump to contrast his record with Clinton’s. But the Trump campaign shifted the focus to immigration and national security in the aftermath of Sunday’s massacre, expanding on and defending proposals that were the centerpiece of his primary campaign.
The ban on Muslim immigration, which many Republicans oppose, had largely been dropped from Trump’s stump speech in recent weeks, but he brought it back in full force on Monday. The candidate has largely dodged questions of how his proposal would protect against attacks by American citizens, including the perpetrator of the Orlando massacre.
“Yes, there are many radicalized people already inside our country as a result of the poor policies of the past,” Trump said. “But the whole point is that it will be much, much easier to deal with our current problem if we don’t keep on bringing in people who add to the problem.”
At one point, Trump incorrectly stated that Omar Mateen, the accused Orlando shooter, was “born an Afghan, of Afghan parents.” Mateen, who was killed by police gunfire, was an American citizen who was born in New York to immigrant parents.
It was not clear whether Trump, who spoke with the aid of a TelePrompTer, simply misspoke or was ad libbing the line, which was not included in a written copy of his remarks later released by his campaign.
In the roughly half-hour speech, Trump repeatedly called out Clinton for opposing new restrictions on immigration while claiming to be in solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the presumed target of Sunday’s attacks. Obama and Clinton, he said, are not fit to lead the nation.
“The bottom line is that Hillary supports the policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into America, and allow it to grow overseas,” Trump said. “Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country. They enslave women and murder gays.”
Trump also dismissed Clinton’s calls for new gun controls, including a ban on assault weapons. Although he expressed support for an assault weapons ban in 1999, when he first considered a run for the presidency as a Reform Party candidate, the GOP candidate touted his recent endorsement from the National Rifle Association and said he would meet with them “to discuss how to ensure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror.”
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Trump accused Clinton of trying to overturn the Second Amendment, something she has repeatedly denied. “Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns,” he said. “She wants to take away Americans’ guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.”
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