Donald Trump's Proposal To Ban Muslims Follows Right-Wing Media Calls To Stop Muslim Refugee Resettlement In The US

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump called for a moratorium on Muslims entering the United States on December 7. Trump's statement followed widespread calls from conservative media not to allow Muslim refugees from Syria to resettle in the United States.

Donald Trump Calls For “A Total And Complete Shutdown Of Muslims Entering The United States”

Trump: Muslims Should Be Banned From Coming Into The United States “Until Our Country's Representatives Can Figure Out What's Going On.” On December 7, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump published a press release “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.” Trump's statement claimed that “there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population,” and that “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”:

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing “25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled, “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.” Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.

Mr. Trump stated, “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. 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. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again.” [DonaldJTrump.com, 12/7/15]

Trump's Proposal Echoes Calls From Conservative Media Not To Allow Muslim Refugees To Resettle In The U.S.

Washington Times' Frank Gaffney Called For “A Moratorium On Muslim Migration” To The U.S. After Paris Terror Attacks. Frank Gaffney, Washington Times columnist and founder of the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy, called for “a moratorium on Muslim migration” into the United States after the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, France. [Right Wing Watch, 11/16/15]

Laura Ingraham: Muslim Refugees Should “Stay In The Middle East.” On the November 16 edition of Courtside Entertainment Group's The Laura Ingraham Show, radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham asserted that the United States “cannot be the warehouse of all these, you know, Muslim people coming from these far-flung lands”:

LAURA INGRAHAM: Apparently we can't close our doors to anybody. Just can't do it. So we're supposed to compromise our security and go further into debt to help people in other countries, many of whom dislike us intensely, and that's putting it nicely. Think we're an evil, horrible country and more often than not they celebrate attacks against us. So we're supposed to lower our standard of living here in the United States, for what, exactly? You explain that to me. For a purely humanitarian reason? Well if that's the case we should have brought in the Christians before they were being slaughtered in the Middle East. And the ones that we can bring in, I think Jeb Bush is right on that. The Christians who we can verifiably say are Christians, who are in the threat of being slaughtered, I'm happy to bring in some of them. I think most people would. But all these other people, they've got to stay in the Middle East. We cannot be the warehouse of all these, you know, Muslim people coming from these far-flung lands where -- we're just not going to be able to control who becomes radicalized, who doesn't because of technology, it's impossible. [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 11/16/15]

Fox's Andrea Tantaros: “Taking Islamic Refugees Would Be Suicide.” On the September 8 edition of Fox's Outnumbered, co-host Andrea Tantaros claimed that “taking Islamic refugees would be suicide” for the United States because “it's a national security issue” and “we don't have the money” to take care of them:

ANDREA TANTAROS: President Bush's intervention in Iraq sent the country into a Shia-Iran orbit, and then you had a Sunni revolt because of that. We've meddled in the Middle East for a long time. And now there's this Sunni-Shia civil war, which I'm sorry, in Syria we have no interest in. It is none of our business. Now you have Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley saying that the United States should absorb 65,000 of these refuges? Okay, 65,000 liberal households, do you want to take them in? Taking Islamic refugees would be suicide.

[...]

HARRIS FAULKNER: Suicide in which way? What do you mean?

TANTAROS: To absorb 65,000 or more Islamic refugees into the country? It's the exact reason that Bolton was warning about.

[...]

LISA KENNEDY MONTGOMERY: You are saying the probability, the mathematical probability of ISIS terrorists disguising themselves as refugees.

[CROSSTALK]

TANTAROS: Number one, that's the biggest issue but number two we don't have the money. We are broke, we can barely take care of our own citizens to absorb them. But number one it's a national security issue. It would be suicide. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 9/8/15]

Fox's Ralph Peters: “To Avoid Importing Islamist Terrorists ... Don't Let The Muslims” Into The U.S. On the November 16 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co., Fox strategic analyst Ralph Peters asserted that the United States should not “let the Muslims in” because the “real refugees among the people fleeing Syria” are Christians:

STUART VARNEY (HOST): Well, that was President Obama on Thursday. Of course, on Friday, ISIS struck Paris. Joining us now, Colonel Ralph Peters.Ralph, welcome to the program. Neither Europe nor America, it seems, can police the domestic Muslim population effectively. Would that be accurate?

RALPH PETERS: Actually, I don't think it's accurate. The Europeans can't. I think we do an amazingly good job because we have averydifferent profile, a different set, different complex of Muslim immigrants here. We have real trouble with some groups like the Somalis, but come on, Iranians who fled the shah, or fled the fall of the shah, they're incredibly productive Americans. So you've got to differentiate between different groups, but what troubles me--

VARNEY: But we can't,Ralph, we can't. I mean, the topic this morning on many people's minds is whether or not we should allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into this country before the end of the year, and another 100,000 next year. We can't -- we don't know who they are. Should we let them in?

PETERS: Yeah but that's -- again, we need a little more granularity. There are real refugees among the people fleeing Syria, and they're Christians. You want to avoid importing Islamist terrorists in our country? Don't let the Muslims in, let the Saudis take them. But I see a good argument for giving refuge to the Christians fleeing the Middle East, because we have stood by and done nothing while 2,000 years of Christian civilization has been systematically and gruesomely destroyed. [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 11/16/15]

Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer: Muslim Refugees “Might Blow Us Up And The Christians Are Not Going To.” On the November 18 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Robert Spencer called President Obama's plan to accept Syrian refugees “insane to the point of suicidal,” claiming that Muslim refugees posed a bigger threat to the United States than Christian refugees because “Muslims might blow us up and the Christians are not going to”:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Robert Spencer, let me begin with you. You heard[Secretary of State]John Kerry, you see the president has dug his heels in and he's insisting that America take in refugees even though we're being warned by our intelligence officials. What is your reaction to this, and what is the president, what is John Kerry not getting?

ROBERT SPENCER: Well, it's insane to the point of suicidal. Just today the Turks arrested eight Islamic State operatives who were posing as refugees on their way to get into Europe. And so, what the president and John Kerry are not getting, what they've never addressed is the possibility of jihadis among the refugees, and yet that's the whole big elephant in the room that has everybody concerned about the refugee problem. He tried to make into a religious -- a problem of religious bigotry, saying some people want to only take in the Christians and not the Muslims. Well, the reason for that is that Muslims might blow us up and the Christians are not going to. [Fox News, Hannity, 11/18/15]

News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch: Obama Should Change Refugee Policy To Accept Only “Proven Christians.” In a November 16 tweet, Rupert Murdoch, executive co-chairman of Fox News' parent company News Corp., wrote, “Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees” and suggested that the United States “maybe make [a] special exception for proven Christians”:

[Twitter.com, 11/16/15]