Donald Trump defiantly defended his proposal that Muslims should be barred from the US in spite of outrage from his own Republican party, saying what he suggested was no worse than the internment of foreigners during the second world war.
“What I’m doing is no different than FDR,” Mr Trump said, referring to wartime president Franklin Roosevelt, who oversaw the detainment of thousands of Japanese Americans. “We have no choice but to do this,” he said.
The property magnate, whose anti-immigrant campaign has upended the 2016 US presidential race, came under heavy fire from Republicans of all stripes, from establishment politicians such as former vice-president Dick Cheney to mavericks such as Ted Cruz, the firebrand Texas senator rising in the polls.