Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has sought to distance himself from comments in which he said that as president he would “absolutely” implement a tracking system that would require Muslims in the US to register with a federal database.
Trump’s comments were the latest and perhaps the most extreme contribution to what is an already sharply charged debate over whether the US should accept Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq in the wake of the Paris attacks last Friday.
On the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidates have issued calls for a prioritization of Christian refugees over Muslim ones and, in Ben Carson’s case, defended a closed-border policy with an analogy about rabid dogs.
Asked by NBC on Thursday if there should be a database system “that tracks the Muslims here in this country”, Trump told the network in Newton, Iowa, in between campaign town halls: “There should be a lot of systems, beyond database, we should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border, we have to have strength, we have to have a wall.”
Asked if that was something he would implement as president, Trump replied: “I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.”
In the ensuing conversation, Trump seemed to conflate the refugee situation with illegal immigration into the US, at times appearing not to distinguish between the two.
Trump won't rule out special ID for Muslim Americans noting their religion
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The NBC journalist asked Trump if Muslims would be legally obligated to sign into the databases. He replied: “They have to be – They have to be.”
Pressed to explain how he would carry out such a proposal, and if there would be a sign-up at mosques, Trump said: “Different places. You sign them up at different places. But it’s all about management.”
During a later interview, the reporter ask how the practice of registering Muslims would be different from registering Jews in Nazi Germany. Trump said: “You tell me,” and then stopped responding.
Earlier on Thursday he told Yahoo: “Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy.”
When asked in that interview if he would consider registering Muslims in a database or giving them a special form of identification, Trump said: “We’re going to have to – we’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely. We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”
Trump’s explosive comments were met with swift condemnation by Democrats – as well as by members of his own party.
Trump’s rival, former Florida governor Jeb Bush called the comments “just wrong”.
“You talk about internment, you talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people,” Bush said on CNBC on Friday morning. “That’s just wrong. I don’t care about campaigns. It’s not a question of toughness. It’s to manipulate people’s angst and their fears. That’s not strength, that’s weakness.”
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton responded on Friday morning, calling it “shocking rhetoric”.