Carson: Registering Muslims sets ‘a pretty unsafe precedent’

Thursday night, news broke that Donald Trump said he “would certainly implement” a database to track Muslims in the United States.

Trump was later asked whether there was a difference between requiring Muslims to register today and Jews registering with the Nazis in the 1930s Germany.

Governor Kasich, who has a Super PAC that will launch series of attacks directed toward Trump, said the database proposal by the real estate mogul was unworthy of the White House. “We must defeat Islamic terrorism & have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America”. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility, elevating fears in the USA and prompting calls for new restrictions on refugees fleeing war-torn Syria. “And that’s just wrong – I don’t care about campaigns”, Bush said.

“Those who want to divide and impose tests, religious tests, where people are going to go and register for deportation squads that are going to try and go into the neighborhoods and ship people out of this country”, Kasich said. “That’s not strength. That’s weakness”, Bush said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Friday morning.

‘Donald Trump is unable to unite and lead our country’.

The Republican front-runner’s attack on the president came after Obama had slammed Republicans’ calls to stop admitting any Syrian refugees into the United States as “offensive”, “political posturing” and a “potent recruitment tool” for ISIS.

Trump’s comments in particular are expected to force his rivals to weigh in on whether they support or oppose his proposal.

The controversy comes a week after the terrorist attacks in Paris left hundreds dead or wounded, and put foreign policy and national security issues front and center of the US presidential race. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) called it “an outrageous and bigoted statement”.

“This is shocking rhetoric”. There, he did not reject the idea of requiring Muslims to register with the government or giving them special identification cards noting their religion.

His words were echoed by Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, who said: “On the question of should the federal government keep a registry of any religious group?”

“I didn’t suggest a database – a reporter did”, Trump tweeted to his 5 million followers.

Speaking in Sioux City, Iowa, Mr Cruz said: “The First Amendment protects religious liberty, and I’ve spent the past several decades defending the religious liberty of every American”.

That single line was swiftly interpreted in several news stories as Trump’s endorsement of a database for Muslims, in turn prompting a widespread backlash.

Donald Trump has a tried and true formula when cornered: Insist he didn’t say what he said.

Trump hasn’t yet said whether his database would include only immigrant Muslims, anyone who identifies as one, or just anyone of Middle Eastern origin, but he’s got plenty of time to figure that out before the elections.