The White House led the widespread condemnation of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump for his call to bar Muslims from entering the United States, asserting the statement “disqualifies” the billionaire businessman for the highest office.
“The fact is what Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, as Trump’s anti-Muslim tirade virtually brought top Democratic and Republican leaders on one platform to denounce his call.
“The Trump campaign for months now has had a dustbin-of-history-like quality to it, from the vacuous sloganeering to the outright lies to even the fake hair,” Earnest commented, adding: “The question now is about the rest of the Republican Party and whether or not they’re going to be dragged into the dustbin of history with him.”
Trump himself remained defiant, defending his plan as “a temporary move” in response to what he cast as “a war with radical Islam” and went on to invoke how President Franklin D. Roosevelt had authorized the detention of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during World War II. “Until we can get our hands around the situation, we have to do something and we have to do it now,” he told MSNBC.
But the Republican Party establishment stepped forward to slam Trump over his controversial proposal. Stating that freedom of religion is America’s fundamental constitutional principle, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for. And more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.” Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell also termed Trump’s call “completely and totally inconsistent with American values”.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, sought to tar the entire Republican Party, saying other Republican presidential hopefuls were maligning Muslims in their own ways.