Donald Trump is under fire for his plan to ban Muslims from entering the United States because "he used the wrong policy to achieve the right objective," political strategist Dick Morris told
Newsmax TV on Thursday.
"I agree with keeping most Muslims out of the United States and so do about 40 percent of the American people and about two-thirds of the Republicans," Morris told "The Hard Line" host Ed Berliner. "But you can't do it based on a religious test."
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"It won't pass muster," he added. "You've got to have a secular way of doing it."
Morris is the co-author of The New York Times best-seller,
"Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One-Party Nation."
He said that the State Department already has a list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
"At the moment there are only three: Syria, Iran, and Yemen," he told Berliner. "But Cuba has just been deleted and Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and a bunch of other countries used to be on it."
Morris also referenced a list of banned countries where a large part of its territory is controlled by Muslims, but that record was discontinued by President Barack Obama.
"We need to resurrect that list and then ban immigration from those countries. Only about 20 percent of the globe's Muslim population lives in the Middle East. The other three-quarters live in Nigeria or Africa or Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia — countries that really are not normally associated with terrorism."
"If we restricted immigration from those countries that either harbor terrorists consciously or — like Saudi Arabia or Iraq — have a large portion of their territory under the control of terrorists.
"That would be approved by the Supreme Court," Morris said. "It's not repugnant to American values and would achieve Mr. Trump's purpose."
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