As 2015 neared its end, and Republican presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire neared, Donald Trump announced a new priority. The future president declared his support for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” until such time that he was satisfied that U.S. officials understood “what the hell is going on.”
As regular readers know, it was an ugly applause line that his base eagerly embraced, which turned into a campaign promise the Republican was eager to keep. On only his seventh day in the White House — late on a Friday afternoon — Trump signed his original travel ban, sparking international outrage, bureaucratic chaos, family hardships and a series of messy legal fights.
Nearly eight years later, he apparently wants to do it again. The New York Times reported overnight on the GOP candidate’s latest pitch to an audience in New Hampshire.
While discussing a series of surprise attacks launched over the weekend by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, Mr. Trump promised to “stand strongly with the state of Israel” and said, to cheers, that he had “imposed a strict travel ban to keep radical Islamic terrorists” out of the United States. He called to “reimpose the travel ban on terror-afflicted countries.”
Trump went on to suggest that Hamas militants are entering the United States through Mexico — a claim the former president appears to have simply made up.
It’s worth noting that the idea of a reimposed travel ban isn’t altogether new. In fact, the Republican made related declarations over the course of the summer.
In June, for example, Trump told a far-right audience that his newly envisioned ban would include political and economic ideologies he doesn’t like. “We’re going to keep foreign, Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists out of America,” he said during a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conference.
At a campaign event in July, the former president added, “Look, we have Marxists, fascists, communists — they’re pouring into our country. We are going to deny them access to our country.” A week later, the Republican assured another far-right audience, “When I return to office, the travel ban is coming back even bigger and much stronger than before.” So to recap, in a second term, Trump intends to ban Muslims, those he considers communists, those he considers Marxists, those he considers socialists, and those he considers fascists from reaching American soil. In 2018, after the Republican administration’s travel ban was tweaked, conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices, in a 5-4 ruling, allowed for its implementation. It’s tough to predict how the justices might respond to a new-but-not-improved version, but it’s tough to be optimistic.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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