Recasts his Muslim ban as “just a suggestion” while keeping the idea alive

Months after calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” Trump spent mid-May 2016 telling reporters that his Muslim ban was now “just a suggestion” and claiming he was “flexible” while refusing to abandon the underlying idea. In interviews and follow-up coverage, he insisted he still wanted “extreme vetting” and new restrictions, even as he tried to soften the language for a general-election audience worried about blatant religious discrimination. By rebranding a categorical Muslim ban as merely one of many “suggestions” without retracting it, he blurred the policy’s contours and made it harder to pin down precisely what he was promising, a pattern that allowed him to appeal both to hardcore supporters who heard a ban and to elites who wanted to believe he would moderate later.

"We have a serious problem. It’s a temporary ban. It hasn’t been called for yet. Nobody’s done it. This is just a suggestion until we find out what’s going on." — Mid-May 2016 interviews, including remarks highlighted in BBC and CNN coverage, where Trump tried to soften his December 2015 call for a Muslim ban by calling it “temporary” and “just a suggestion” while reaffirming his desire for new restrictions