Donald Trump: I Would “Strongly Consider” Closing Certain Mosques

“And I understand our mayor totally cut that out”, said Trump.

Trump appeared to be referring to the NY Police Department’s Demographics Unit, which The Associated Press reported in 2011 was spying on Muslims and mosques around the city with help from the Central Intelligence Agency.

“I’m not sure it’s a fact, but I heard that under the old regime we had tremendous surveillance going on in and around the mosques of NY City”, Trump said. “And that’s been totally cut out”.

During the Monday interview on “Morning Joe“, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Trump if closing down mosques would only incite more hatred.

Mr. Trump said at the time that he cut ties with Macy’s and not the other way around.

Jansing said “That have radical leadership”.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the… “You’re going to have to certainly look at it”. And, you know, NY City as an example. Under the new mayor they are not doing that anymore and I think that’s a mistake.

“I’m putting people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, they’re going back”, he told supporters in New Hampshire in late September. “And the hatred that can breed”, if mosques are shut down.

“We have no idea who these people are, we are the worst when it comes to paperwork”, Trump said Monday on CNBC. “The hatred is incredible; it’s embedded”. The hatred is beyond belief. The hatred is greater than anybody understand. And it’s already there. “Forty-eight hours ago everybody was saying, ‘Well, we want our freedoms, we don’t want this to happen.’ And now, all of sudden, people are saying, ‘Hey listen, you can listen to my phone conversations'”. It’s already there. It’s a very, very sad situation.

Trump, who leads the race for the 2016 Republican nomination, pointed to the “great surveillance” that previous NY administrations had conducted on Muslim places of worship, particularly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and suggested such monitoring should be resumed.

At one point, host Joe Scarborough asked Trump if he agrees that only a small percentage of Muslims are violent radicals.