Whether you’re watching the MSNBC special with Donald Trump or the other train wreck of a town hall on CNN, you’ll hear the same divisive, vitriolic language tonight coming from all of the GOP candidates.
This kind of hateful rhetoric is not only wrong, it is dangerous. Hillary Clinton knows that a strong America is a united America, but we can’t say the same for the Republican presidential candidates:
Donald Trump:
“Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump wants to bar all Muslims from entering the United States. In a statement from his campaign, Trump called for a ‘total and complete shutdown’ of Muslims entering the United States until elected leaders can ‘figure out what is going on.’ When asked by The Hill whether that would include Muslim-American citizens currently abroad, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks replied over email: ‘Mr. Trump says, ‘everyone.’’” [The Hill, 12/7/15]
Ted Cruz:
“Sen. Ted Cruz Sunday continued to call for Muslim refugees from Syria to be barred from entering the United States but opening the borders to displaced Christians, arguing there is not a ‘meaningful risk’ that Christians will commit terrorist acts. ‘There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror. If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation,’ Cruz (R-Tex.) told reporters in a middle school gym here.” [Washington Post, 11/15/15]
Ben Carson:
“Ben Carson says the United States should not elect a Muslim president. ‘I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that,’ the retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate said Sunday on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’” [CNN,9/21/15]
Marco Rubio:
Marco Rubio said that Muslims were like “Germans who may have been members of the Nazi party, but weren’t violent themselves.” [ABC’s This Week, 11/15/15]