Trump is expanding his territory on Muslim ban, not rolling it back

The Washington Post

Donald Trump made clear this weekend that he has not rolled back his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, despite top allies insisting that he had.

In accepting the Republican nomination for president Thursday night, Mr. Trump said the country “must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time it’s proven that vetting mechanisms have been put in place.”

He made no mention of Muslims in the speech, leading many to conclude that Mr. Trump had formally changed his position — just as a number of his top allies, including his running mate, said he had.

During an interview this weekend with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd asked Mr. Trump whether his comment should be interpreted as a “slight rollback.” “I don’t think so. I actually don’t think it’s a rollback. In fact, you could say it’s an expansion,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m looking now at territory. People were so upset when I used the word ‘Muslim’: ‘Oh, you can’t use the word “Muslim.” ’ Remember this. And I’m OK with that, because I’m talking territory instead of Muslim.”

Mr. Trump first proposed banning nearly all Muslims overseas from the country in early December, soon after a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. His original statement — which calls for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” — is still on his campaign website. This position continues to be one of Mr. Trump’s most controversial and a key reason that some fellow Republicans do not want to help him with his campaign.

After he became the presumptive nominee, Mr. Trump made comments that seemed to indicate he was willing to soften his position. In May, he said the Muslim ban is “just a suggestion” and that he’s open to other ideas. In June, after the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, he called for a temporary ban on “certain people coming from certain horrible — where you have tremendous terrorism in the world, you know what those places are.” At the time, it appeared that Mr. Trump was expanding his ban to include more people, not limiting its scope, but his staff would not confirm where their boss stood.

Later that month, during a visit to one of his golf courses in Scotland, a reporter asked Mr. Trump whether he would be OK with a Muslim from Scotland coming into the United States, and he said it “wouldn’t bother me.” Afterward, spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email that Mr. Trump’s ban would apply only to Muslims in states with high risks of terrorism, but she would not confirm that the ban would not apply to non-Muslims from those countries or to Muslims living in peaceful countries.

More recently, several of his top allies have said the nominee no longer wants a religion-based ban. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s running mate, criticized Mr. Trump’s original proposal but says he can support Mr. Trump’s current position, which he described as temporarily suspending “immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States.”

Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also has pushed that characterization of the ban, while dodging questions on whether it would still target followers of Islam. Reince Priebus, the Republican Party chairman, said last weekend that Mr. Trump has moved away from his original proposal and that “there is no religious test on the table.”

In the “Meet the Press” interview, which was conducted Saturday, Mr. Trump said his proposed ban is constitutional.

Mr. Todd then pressed Mr. Trump on specific scenarios: France and Germany have been compromised by terrorism, so would he limit all immigration from these countries?

Mr. Trump repeatedly avoided answering the question, instead saying that it’s the fault of these countries that they have been attacked by terrorists.

During the interview, Mr. Trump was also asked to explain comments he recently made about NATO to The New York Times, saying that if an ally country were attacked, the United States might not defend it.