Commentators on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” praised Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday after he faced about half an hour’s worth of questions over his controversial call for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
Trump, who called in for an interview, defended his policy proposal for the U.S. to prevent any Muslims from entering the country in light of the Islamic State’s growing threat against the West.
At the start of the interview, Trump went on a lengthy tirade about the Islamic State and the Obama administration’s handling of the matter, before show host Joe Scarborough, Republican and former congressman, cut off Trump and forced a commercial break.
After the break, Trump remained on the line and took dozens of questions from each of the show’s panelists, who mostly suggested that his proposal was unworkable and antithetical to American values of religious freedom. Trump admitted that a ban on Muslims would be a tough stance but said that it would not apply to current U.S. citizens and that if such a policy were enacted, it might be short-lived.
“This is where he’s gotten better,” said Nicole Wallace, a former communications aide to president George W. Bush, after the interview. “He says something so outrageous that the impulse is to call him a maniac. And then he comes on, I think he was on for 30 minutes, and he took the questions … I can’t think of any politician that would have come back after the break and stayed for half an hour and taken all of our questions. So, he has talents. But … I want to eat glass because they’re so squandered.”
Scarborough said that “no candidate in [Trump’s] position, after we attacked him for an hour, would have called in in the first place. And that’s what so many politicians don’t understand.”
He commended Trump for defending the ban and recalled a past controversy wherein Trump also defended himself, convincing “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski that he’s “going to win” the GOP nomination.
Mark Halperin, an NBC News contributor and Bloomberg Politics editor, said Trump’s handling of the current controversy so far suggests that he likely “survives, maybe thrives” heading into the primaries.
Trump’s GOP rivals, however, have all either distanced themselves from Trump’s comments on Muslims or denounced him altogether.
