Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called for surveillance of mosques as part of US law enforcement efforts to prevent terrorism, and stood by his remarks on banning Muslim immigrants that others in his party have criticised.
Trump repeated his call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the United States after a US-born Muslim man with Afghan immigrant parents fatally shot 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub early on Sunday.
The billionaire New York real estate developer on Wednesday said that while the Florida gunman was born in the United States, "his parents weren't and his ideas weren't born here."
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"We have to maybe check, respectfully, the mosques and we have to check other places because this is a problem that, if we don't solve it, it's going to eat our country alive," Trump said at a rally in Atlanta.
The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, is believed by authorities to have acted alone, inspired by radical ideology he was exposed to over the internet.
Prominent Republicans this week distanced themselves from Trump's comments about Muslims after the Orlando mass shooting.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday he did not think a ban on Muslim immigrants was in US interests.
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US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination and has been a fierce critic since, said Trump's response made him "unnerved."
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said on Wednesday that Trump's rhetoric had grown "even more inflammatory" in recent days.
She said the United States counts on partners in majority-Muslim countries to help fight terrorism.
"Not one of Donald Trump's reckless ideas would have saved a single life in Orlando," Clinton said at an event for US military families in Virginia.
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