Trump’s Muslim ban: From simple clarity to plain confusion

When asked on a tour of his Aberdeen golf course, whether he would allow Muslims from Scotland or Great Britain into the U.S., Trump shook his head.

– January 2016: Trump sticks with his Muslim ban.

Has Donald Trump lifted his Muslim ban?

When first announced in December, Trump’s proposal stated that there would be “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. Would he halt immigration from the United Kingdom, France and Belgium, all targeted by Islamic extremists? I want people that have bad thoughts out.

“When you have a terrorist country, and you have a country that’s loaded up with terrorism, we don’t want the people coming in until they’re very strongly vetted”, he told DailyMail.com.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined Sunday to say if Donald Trump, his party’s presumptive presidential candidate, is qualified to be president.

“But they’re going to be even more severely vetted if it’s one of the terror countries”.

Which countries qualify as “terror countries”? Trump didn’t specify, saying simply that “they’re pretty well-decided”.

What makes Trump’s position on Muslim immigration so hard to pin down is timing.

His original proposal, outlined in a written statement on December 7, included the caveat that a Muslim ban would last only “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. So he has always provided for the re-opening of American borders to foreign Muslims – albeit without any timetable.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) added over the weekend that Trump’s Muslim ban is “not a real proposal” – the candidate he’s endorsed appears to disagree – adding that, if he’s re-elected, the far-right senator would “encourage” Trump to go in a different direction.

Thus, journalists are left unsure of how to characterize Trump’s stance. “I would limit specific terrorist countries and we know who those terrorist countries are”, Trump said.

Confusion is, perhaps, exactly what Trump wants.

Hope Hicks, Trump’s campaign spokeswoman said that he had revised his ban on Muslims in a recent policy speech, but, fact checkers determined that was untrue. He gave no indication his position had changed: “Greta, as you know it’s temporary”, he said. “But has this worked before in the history of politics?”

Hicks said in an email that her boss took this new position, which is a dramatic scaling back of the position he first took in early December, during a policy speech almost two weeks ago.

It’s not obvious whether these policy proposals are meant to complement or replace each other.

But his aides have repeatedly denied that this represents a shift in policy.