Furor rises over anti-Muslim policy
Fellow Republicans, Obama and foreign leaders denounce Trump
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s eye-popping proposal to ban Muslim travel to the United States prompted an unprecedented level of condemnation for a campaign derided as a buffoonish electoral sideshow.
This time his critics weren’t calling him a clown — but something worse.
The idea of religion-based controls at the border prompted the leadership of his party to denounce him Tuesday. Media that had previously laughed at him likened him to a fascist.
World leaders took the unusual step of commenting on a foreign, internal partisan process.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers noted that Canadians had rejected Muslim-bashing politics in the recent election. Britain’s David Cameron called Trump’s idea unhelpful and wrong, and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair floated his own idea: a Trump travel ban.
“We should make sure that Donald Trump stays out of Canada,” Mulcair told reporters.
Trump responded defiantly to the uproar. He even blasted out a tweet that many viewed as a thinly veiled threat against his Republican party brass. He posted a new poll that suggested more than two-thirds of his supporters would follow him, should he run as an independent.
This was after prominent members of his party condemned him. The Republicans’ top figure in Congress, Paul Ryan, said he’d break his no-interference rule to castigate comments he called antithetical to U.S. values.
A spokesman for President Barack Obama insisted that Republicans pledge to oppose Trump should he become the nominee — a significant step no other candidate has taken.
“What Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president,” said Obama spokesman Josh Earnest. “And any Republican who’s too fearful of the Republican base to admit it has no business serving as president either ...”
The tone of U. S. media coverage also appears to have shifted.
It was illustrated on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News: The New Furor, was its lead headline under an unflatteringly timed photo of Trump with an extended arm.
Another interviewer on CNN put it more bluntly: “Leaders from your own party (are) saying this is un-American and extreme and that it makes you a fascist. How do you respond?”
This was the day after Trump read out a statement on his new policy to a partisan crowd. He was cheered throughout a caustic speech during which he railed against the media in the back of the room as “absolute scum.”
With the primaries less than two months away, Trump remains in first place in the Republican polls. And he’s supplemented his promise to deport 11 million mostly Hispanic illegal migrants with a policy aimed at Muslims.