After raising eyebrows early Thursday with comments suggesting he would be open to having American Muslims register, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump doubled down on his grand designs later the same evening between campaign appearances in Iowa. Speaking with NBC News , Trump not only said he would be open to the idea, the billionaire candidate said he would implement a number of measures to monitor Americans based on their religion .
“I would certainly implement that. Absolutely … There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases,” he added. “We should have a lot of systems.”
Asked if Muslims would be required to register with the government by law, Donald Trump replied, “They have to be — they have to be.”
Vaughn Hillyard confronted Trump on behalf of NBC News following one of the appearances, asking the candidate four different times to explain how requiring Muslims to register with the government differed from how Nazis tracked Jews during the Holocaust.
“You tell me,” Trump replied coldly.
Beginning with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the Nazis enacted a series of laws aimed at the marginalization of Jews from German society. As noted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , over 400 anti-Jewish decrees and regulations were enacted in Germany by 1939, restricting the public affairs and private lives of Jewish citizens. In 1939, Nazis began requiring Jews in occupied territories to wear yellow badges signifying the Star of David. Members of other ethnic groups and minorities as well as political opponents were also required to wear similar badges once they were interned in concentration camps .
Speaking to NBC News regarding Trump’s comments, Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, drew a clear parallel between the Republican candidate’s aspirations and those of Hitler’s inner circle.
“We’re kind of at a loss for words… What else can you compare this to except to prewar Nazi Germany? There’s no other comparison, and [Trump] seems to think that’s perfectly OK.”
Although Donald Trump drew the ire of Latinos in the early days of his campaign, his attention has largely shifted to Muslims since the Paris terror attacks last week. On Monday, Trump said he would “strongly consider” closing mosques in the United States if elected president. Trump has also indicated that he would be open to requiring Muslims to carry special ID cards that identified them as followers of Islam.
Although many of the above-noted initiatives articulated by Donald Trump seem grossly unconstitutional and unlikely to survive an ensuing spate of robust legal challenges, the GOP frontrunner has shrugged off similar critiques of his ideas in the past. In August, the real estate mogul entertained the revocation of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing birthright citizenship . The last significant challenge to the amendment was in 1898.
Trump’s recent pitches regarding anti-Muslim legislation seem to overtly conflict with the First Amendment of the Constitution, which forbids government meddling in freedom of expression and religion.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Despite all the flap regarding Donald Trump’s questionable interpretation of the United States Constitution, a document that ostensibly represents the most sacred principles in American society, he retains a commanding lead over his Republican rivals . A Bloomberg poll shows Trump leading Ben Carson by four points. Recent polling by Fox News indicates Donald Trump sits at 27% percent in a New Hampshire primary poll, leading runner-up Marco Rubio by over 14 points.
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