Donald Trump corrected reports from the media suggesting that he actually wanted a government database for all Muslim Americans to be registered in order to stop terrorism.
“I didn’t suggest a database – a reporter did,” he wrote on Twitter moments ago. “We must defeat Islamic terrorism and have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America.”
The media spent most of the day reacting to Trump’s positive reaction to a question posed by reporters as to whether he supported a plan to register American Muslims.
From the exchange:
Reporter: Should there be a database system that tracks the Muslims here in this country?
Trump: There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems. And today you can do it. But right now, we have to have a border, we have to have strength, we have to have a wall, and we cannot let what’s happening to this country happen any longer.
Reporter: But that’s something your White House would like to implement?
Trump: Oh, I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.
Reporter: What do you think the effect of that would be? How would that work?
Trump: It would stop people from coming in illegally. We have to stop people from coming into our country illegally.
Reporter: Specifically, how do you actually get them registered in a database?
Trump: It would be good management, what you have to do is good management procedures and we can do that.
Reporter: Do you go to mosques and sign these people up?
Trump: Different places. You sign them up at difference places. But it’s all about management, our country has no management.
As Breitbart’s Joel Pollack wrote, the media has used the exchange to smear Trump as a ‘Nazi.’ Former Florida governor Jeb Bush criticized Trump’s comments, calling them “abhorrent.”
“I find it abhorrent that Donald Trump is suggesting that we register people,” he said on CNBC this morning. “That haunts back to a time that no one wants to go back to.”