Donald Trump says critics realise he ‘has a point’ on Muslims

'Within two weeks all of a sudden people started saying wow, you know what he’s right'

Trump speaks in South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty)

Donald Trump, the surprise and relentlessly controversial Republican presidential frontrunner, said last night that critics of his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the United States in the wake of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooting are starting to come around to it and see that he has “a has a point”.

He made the remarks in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he accepted a key endorsement of the New England law enforcement union, even as new polling came out showing that most Americans disagree with the proposition.

The plan, which has already earned him scorn worldwide, especially in Britain, also attracted a crowd of about 200 protestors to the street outside the hotel, in possibly the largest demonstration against his candidacy he has yet encountered. Many bore placards denouncing him. One, in electric lights, said merely, “Love > Hate”.

Addressing the issue in almost light-hearted fashion, he told about 200 members of the New England Police Benevolent Association, that he had had “a pretty interesting couple of days”, clearly referring to the furor that has blown up since he proposed the Muslim border ban on Monday, though he didn’t utter the word “Muslim” or “borders” once. “We have people talking, I will tell you that,” he said to laughter in a small hotel ballroom here.

Mr Trump, whose lead nationally and in key early primary states, including here in New Hampshire, among Republican hopefuls keeps expanding, then compared the controversy he triggered this week to the one that followed from his suggestion when he first declared in June that illegal immigrants from Mexico were “criminals” and “rapists”.

“The heat I took was unbelievable, unbelievable. The heat was incredible…far greater that what has happened over the last couple of days,” he said. But he argued that the criticism of him that time melted away. “Within two weeks all of a sudden people started saying wow, you know what he’s right!” he said. Even the other candidates came around, he attested.

Showing no sign of remorse or second thoughts about calling for American borders to be slammed shut on all Muslims, he said he could already tell the same was repeating itself. “What I talked about, what I said the other day …all of a sudden watching the (TV) shows this morning and I am watching the shows tonight and it’s, you know, Trump, has a point.”

While Mr Trump’s border plan seems so far to have little negative effect on his support in the party, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 57 per cent of Americans disliked it. Only 25 per cent of Americans approved of his idea.