Donald Trump Says London's Muslim Mayor Could Visit U.S. as "Exception" to Muslim Ban

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee flip-flops on promise to ban all Muslims, London Mayor Sadiq Khan says he's not interested in being an "exception."

Americanspirit/Dreamstime.com

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he would make an "exception" to the "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the country he called for last December.

The lucky exceptional Muslim: newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan. 

This past Sunday, Khan, the 45-year-old London-born son of Pakistani immigrants told TIME that he wants to "meet and engage with American mayors" as soon as possible because, "If Donald Trump becomes the President, I'll be stopped from going there by virtue of my faith."

Last night, Trump told the New York Times, that he was "happy" to see a Muslim elected mayor of London, and in his inimitable style of repeating monosyllabic words to express an idea, added, "I think it's a very good thing, and I hope he does a very good job because frankly that would be very, very good." 

Back in December, a Trump spokesman affirmed that the candidate meant it when he said that the ban on Muslims would apply to "everyone" except for U.S. citizens, but when speaking with the Times, Trump said, "There will always be exceptions," seemingly indicating that he considered Khan potentially one of the good ones.

This morning, the BBC reported that Khan was not interested in being Trump's exception, saying, "This isn't just about me. It's about my friends, my family and everyone who comes from a background similar to mine, anywhere in the world."

Reason's Shikha Dalmia wrote this past January of how all the since-vanquished (except for possibly Jeb Bush) Republican presidential hopefuls were "uncomfortable with Trump's ban. But none of them were comfortable saying so…"

At no time did any of Trump's rivals stand up to his anti-Muslim rhetoric by invoking something so obvious (the possibility of a Muslim politician wishing to visit the U.S. on official business) as just one of many reasons why beyond being immoral, such a ban is stupid and impractical. 

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

You let one Muslim in and next thing you know, BOOM, Sharia Law.

[tarran]

Look at me; I came from a muslim country, and naturally my anarchism is actually a cover to bring in polygamy and shariah law.

[Roger the Shrubber]

Tarran is Arabic for token?

[commodious spittoon]

Tarran's an assassin?!

[Ted S.]

With plural marriage, love wins.

[Notorious UGCC]

It's a win-win-win-win.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yes, we will look at you. We will look at you very closely.

[Ra's al Gore]

He was already on record as 'allowing' athletes and foreign govt officials, and "none" was just shorthand. This isn't new.

[Irish, Target-Bathroom Rapist]

OTish: Pictures from an anti-Trump rally really show the left at it's most deranged.

"Repeatedly throughout the day the cops would intentionally choose some random spot in the road and line up ? even though there was nothing behind them to defend ? and the protesters would dutifully start lining up in front of them, resulting in an artificially constructed and completely purposeless "confrontation.""

"Sometimes the reverse would happen: The protesters would line up to "make a stand" in the middle of nowhere and then the cops would wearily put on their riot gear and dutifully troop out to stand in front of the protesters."

"This completely absurd kabuki kept happening over and over because it served a useful purpose for each side: The cops wanted to lure the protesters away from the hotel (and did so successfully most of the time) by establishing scrimmage lines in the boondocks, while the protesters wanted to be perceived as brave revolutionaries "confronting the power structure." So each side got exactly what it wanted out of these almost comical pseudo-battles."

[Irish, Target-Bathroom Rapist]

""Things started to get violent when one of the leftists (the woman with the ponytail) cocked her arm back and took a swing at one of the young men standing silently with the Trump contingent. I heard a "Smack!" but didn't manage to capture the moment of impact. The youth himself just stood there dazed afterwards, remaining silent, but the guy with the beard was outraged: "What the hell is the matter with you?" he yelled at the grinning woman. She was completely unapologetic, and seemed sincerely mystified as to how anyone could criticize her behavior. I couldn't make out her exact words over the hubbub, but the gist of her defense was, "That guy looked smug; he has white privilege; he's a fascist; so naturally I slapped the smug off his face. What's the problem?"""

If Donald Trump becomes president it will largely be because of things like this. Pretty much the only time I have good thoughts about Donald Trump is when I see the kind of absolute slime that shows up to protest him.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

We should gather up all the cops and liberal protesters in the country and give them a city, one that we didn't want anyway, like Detroit or San Francisco. Then we'll let 'em take the streets and vent their desire to protest and be oppressed/practice excessive riot control.

[commodious spittoon]

"If Trump elected

hell toupee"

I want that on a shirt.

[Demoted Comment (Slammer)]

Do any of those people have jobs they should be at?

[Rebel Scum]

The answer to that riddle is "no".

[paranoid android]

So Trump's alleged appeal is that he'll stick it to those suspicious Muslims, those hoighty-toighty Europeans, and those entitled politicians, but he'll gladly make exceptions to his own "policies" for a Muslim European politician, is that right?

[Eternal Blue Sky]

I think it's him attempting to now soften his image now that he's won the primary. He's planting a narrative of "Oh now look at Trump, with all these exceptions to the ideas he pitched that we denounced as extreme." Many will denounce this as Trump flip-flopping, but lots more will see it as him failing to be as extremist as people expect him to be.

[SugarFree]

This one might not be a rapist.

[Notorious UGCC]

Not everything he spitballs is meant to be set in stone.

Here he is in Trump: The Art of the Deal (Ballantine reprint, 2015) on one of his negotiations:

"...for whatever reason, Franklin Jarman was willing to see me. We met, and I told him straight out that I would love to buy the Bonwit Teller store and building. I knew this was a tough sell, so I tried to find ways to make the deal sound more attractive. I suggested, for example, that I would build above his store [in the building], and that he could keep it open during construction. That's not really feasible , but the point was that I would have done almost anything to get that piece of property." (p. 146)

(he ended up buying the property from a subsequent owner)

[Notorious UGCC]

He's looking to make deals, as he sees it. You have an end goal, but that doesn't prevent you from floating tentative ideas - "hauling them up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes," I think the term is. As long as he's not selling out his final goal, he can throw out all sorts of suggestions and then walk them back if it's getting the way of clinching the deal.

[Notorious UGCC]

getting *in* the way

[Notorious UGCC]

And if you *don't* throw out creative suggestions, how will you ever know whether the other guy would have gone with it?

[Notorious UGCC]

In the example above, his end goal is getting the property.

Today, his end goal is either the Presidency or a position in Hillary's "bipartisan cabinet" (I'm not sure which). I suspect it's the Presidency, since he's not shy saying what his end goal is.

But he has to make the sale, and who's the potential buyer?

You and me, babe.

[Restoras]

Shouldn't the alt+text be more, I dunno, homage to a Nuremberg Rally?

[Karinka]

Are you single tonight? A lot of beautiful girls waiting for you to http://goo.gl/pI9ucn
The best adult dating site!

[Alan Vanneman]

Probably should be "mono- or di-syllabic". Just sayin'.

[Reactionary Moment]

Khan is an islamist with ties to islamic extremists. A dark day for London and UK that he was elected after the great Boris Johnson. i would not make an exception for him if I was Trump.

[Drake]

I don't know much about him, but he certainly doesn't sound like one of those nice assimilated Muslims you hear so much about. More like a trailing indicator that the UK is truly fucked.

[Agammamon]

'Great' 'Boris Johnson'.

Unless its great big fat marxist ninny Boris Johnson, those two phrases don't go together.

[Agammamon]

"Exception" to Muslim Ban

And the mask slips again. Its not about 'protection', its about *power*.