Barack Obama Slams Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban After Orlando Shooting

President Barack Obama has attacked the Muslim ban proposed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump saying that is “not the America we want”.

Treating Muslim-Americans differently will only make the US less safe by increasing division between the West and the Muslim world, Barack Obama said.

On June 13, Donald Trump extended his ban plan to people from all countries with a terror history against the US.

The New York billionaire said the deadly Orlando nightclub shootings justified such action.

Forty-nine people were killed when Omar Mateen, a US national with Afghan parents, opened fire in a gay club on June 12.

Donald Trump said his proposal could be implemented through unilateral executive action, given the president’s power to “suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the president deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States”.

On June 14, at the US Treasury in Washington, a visibly angry Barack Obama launched his strongest assault yet on Donald Trump who is expected to be confirmed as the Republican nominee next month.

Barack Obama said the US had been founded on freedom of religion and having a “religious test” would be against the US Constitution.

The president also noted that recent terror attacks in the US had been carried out by people born in the US.

Omar Mateen, 29, was born in the same New York neighborhood as Donald Trump.

Barack Obama also urged the US to reinstate the ban on assault weapons.

He dismissed Donald Trump’s suggestion that he resign because he refuses to use the word “radical Islamic terrorism”.

“If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists’ work for them,” he said.

PresidentObama will visit the scene of the carnage in Orlando on June 16.