Donald Trump's fellow Republican presidential candidates have unleashed a storm of criticisms against him for daring to suggest – to much crowd applause – to his South Carolina campaign audience that Muslims ought to be halted at the border for the time being in order to secure the safety of America.
Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, tweeted: "Donald Trump is unhinged. His 'policy' proposals are not serious."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has been struggling to gain steam in polls since he announced a run for the White House, said in a statement reported by AOL: "This is just more of the outrageous divisiveness that characterizes his every breath and another reason why he is entirely unsuited to lead the United States."
New Jersey's Chris Christie said similarly.
"This is the kind of thing that people say when they have no experience and don't know what they're talking about," he said in a statement. "We do not need to endorse that type of activity, nor should we."
And Sen. Lindsey Graham, another presidential hopeful who's been experience lackluster poll numbers, put out a series of tweets that were critical of Trump.
"@Realdonaldtrump has gone from making absurd comments to being downright dangerous with his bombastic rhetoric," he wrote, AOL found.
And another, from the South Carolina senator: "He's putting at risk the lives of interpreters, American supporters, diplomats, & the troops in the region by making these bigoted comments."
And yet one more: "Every candidate for president needs to do the right thing & condemn @Realdonaldtrump's statement," Graham wrote.
Trump explained Monday on Fox News that his proposal would not apply to Muslim Americans and Muslims already living legally in the United States.
"It does not apply to people living in the country, except we have to be vigilant," Trump said on Fox News moments before he took the stage in South Carolina, where he acknowledged during a raucous rally that his call for barring all Muslim foreigners from entering the United States is "probably not politically correct."
He called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. We have no choice. We have no choice. We can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse."
Below is the text of Trump's statement sent to reporters Monday on Muslims entering the United States:
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing '25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad' and 51% of those polled, 'agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.' Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women."
Mr. Trump stated, "Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for president, we are going to Make America Great Again."
His fellow presidential hopefuls aren't the only ones taking aim at Trump for proposing a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration.
Fox News star Megyn Kelly reacted to his proposed border ban by suggesting Republicans would now have a more difficult time warding off attacks that paint them as anti-Muslim.
"Talk about ceding the moral high ground," she said, during her recent broadcast, Mediaite reported. She said it was “like he was getting ideas from President Obama’s speech.”
And Dick Cheney, former vice president, sided with President Obama's view of the situation, saying to radio host Hugh Hewitt what the White House chief put out just hours earlier – that the idea of banning a whole group from America "goes against everything we stand for and believe in."
Check out the latest patriotic memorabilia at the WND Superstore
Trump's remarks have even reached the ears of overseas American allies, igniting a firestorm among the British.
The spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron said, the Guardian reported: "The prime minister completely disagrees with the comments made by Donald Trump, which are divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong."
And others in the British political high life said similarly.
Kezia Dugdale, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, agreed with Cheney and tweeted, the Guardian found: "Trump's a disgrace. When even Dick Cheney says you're too right wing it's time for a wee lie down in a dark room."
Yvette Cooper, the former Labour Party leadership hopeful, said in a tweet: "Appalled by the ignorant & islamophobic statement from Trump. He may like to shock, but this isn't a game, it is irresponsible & dangerous."
From Tom Brake, with the Lib Dem party, tweeted: "Thought of banning Americans from America Trump?"
And his political counterpart, Conservative MP's Sarah Wollaston, wrote similarly: "Do we get to ban Donald Trump?"
Not all find Trump's views on Muslims at the border negative, however.
Conservative columnist and pundit Ann Coulter took to Twitter to show her support for the front-runner Republican candidate, summarizing in just a few words what polls show most GOP voters are thinking right now: "GO TRUMP, GO!"
She also went on in separate tweets to remind voters of the Republican backtracking on immigration in recent years.
As Mediaite reported, Coulter tweeted: "Anyone remember the GOP's massive betrayal on amnesty earlier this year? And they wonder why Trump is killing."
Coulter wasn't the only political pundit to abstain from criticizing Trump. CNN's political correspondent, Jeffrey Lord, seemed to suggest to host Anderson Cooper the candidate was actually making a smart defensive move.
In a recent broadcast, Cooper opened by saying: "To say that no Muslims can come into this country, I mean you're painting it with a very broad brush, aren't you?
Lord responded, Media Matters reported: "Until we understand how this works, we have dead people in America, dead on the streets of Boston, dead in a conference room. I mean we are in a war here."
Trump has refused to back down, warning on Tuesday that there will be additional terror attacks in the U.S. if his temporary ban on Muslim immigration is not put in place.
"You're going to have many more World Trade Centers if you don't solve it – many, many more and probably beyond the World Trade Center," Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo in a contentious interview on "New Day."
Watch Donald Trump's interview on CNN:
A defiant Trump said he believes that there are already terrorists in America eager to harm the country.
"They want our buildings to come down; they want our cities to be crushed," he said, noting that the Trade Centers were attacked twice and citing last week's shootings in San Bernardino. "They want our cities to be crushed. They are living within our country. And many of them want to come from outside our country."
Cuomo challenged Trump, noting most of the developer's Republican rivals have criticized it.
"We can close our eyes," Trump said. "We can put the blinders on, but I don't choose to do that."
Trump said he didn't care what the GOP thinks about his call to pause Muslim immigration and called it a "common-sense" approach to preventing a Paris-like attack on the U.S.
"We don't want that. We need intelligence in this country. We need a certain toughness in this country or we're going to end up like a lot of the other places and we're not going to have a country left."