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NYC mayor warns travel ban 'first step' toward Muslim registry: 'I don't say that out of paranoia'

Mayor Bill de Blasio (MSNBC)
Travis Gettys
February 01, 2017

New York City's mayor is worried that President Donald Trump's travel ban is just the first step on a very dark path.

Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," where co-anchor Willie Geist asked him whether he believed Trump's executive order amounted to a ban on Muslim immigration.

"I think it’s the first step toward a ban, I think it's the first step toward a registry," de Blasio said. "I don't say that out of paranoia."

Trump's supporters often defend his outrageous statements by saying they should not be taken literally, but de Blasio said the president had been clear about his intentions throughout his campaign.

"I think it's really smart in political life to assume that if someone says something out loud, to the roar of the crowd, they just might mean it," de Blasio said. "And a lot of history suggests we should have taken people a little more literally, and we wouldn't have been surprised later on."

As a candidate, Trump talked about banning Muslim immigration, at least temporarily, and setting up a Muslim registry, de Blasio said, and one of his first acts was to temporarily ban travelers from certain majority-Muslim nations.

"I think this is an obvious first step, I think it caused revulsion all over the country," de Blasio said. "I think a lot of people saw this and said, 'Wait a minute -- we're putting older folks in detention, folks who are ill, children? Permanent residents were in detention?'"

"That was, I think, one of the things that really bothered me most," de Blasio continued. "How do you put a permanent resident of the United States in detention with no charge? That's fundamentally against our values."

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