White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States is putting the entire Republican Party at risk of becoming irrelevant.
As evidence, Earnest cited a poll showing that just 25 percent of Americans agree with Trump’s suggestion.
“The continued insistence on the part of Republican candidates for president and other leaders in the Republican Party that they would vote for somebody, potentially, for president of the United States who holds such offensive, divisive views that run counter to the very values of this country, is in itself alarming and does not bode well for the future of the Republican Party,” Earnest said on Thursday, referring to the 42 percent of Republican voters who said they agree with Trump.
“I do think that the dustbin of history-like quality of Mr. Trump’s campaign persists, and the risk [to] the rest of the modern Republican Party being dragged into that same dustbin of history along with him also persists,” Earnest said.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday found that overall, 57 percent of adults do not support banning Muslims from the country.
“[I]t sounds like three out of four Americans agree with … the president … about Mr. Trump’s offensive and divisive comments,” Earnest said when asked to comment on the notion that one-in-four Americans agrees with Trump.
“I know Mr. Trump’s new to politics … I don’t think any candidate, frankly, is going to be satisfied with a poll that shows that only one in four Americans supports your position,” he said.
