Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Tuesday defended Donald Trump after he reiterated his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.
Carson said Trump’s plan is based on the fact that immigrants from different areas of the world need to be screened differently, and told Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson it’s necessary to look at the “spirit” of Trump’s words.
“The spirit is, we have to apply much more stringent requirements and screening processes to people who are coming from that area of the country,” Carson said. “We cannot continue to risk the American people. That’s really what he’s saying.”
The Fox host responded, “I think there is a big difference between having stringent guidelines, Dr. Carson, and completely banning all Muslims, is there not?”
“There is. But again, what the point is we all say, yes, we should have more stringent guidelines, and then we don’t do anything different and we continue to let them in,” Carson said.
“So his point is, let’s stop the silliness. Let’s get very, very serious about this. And obviously what one person thinks is not going to carry the day. There is going to be negotiations, a lot of rational thought processing is going to go into it, but under a Trump administration there would be very serious screening of these individuals.”
Prior to suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing Trump, Carson in December called Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. unconstitutional.
“We do not discriminate on people based on religion — that’s constitutional, that’s in the First Amendment, so we would never want to do that,” Carson said in December.
