At rally, Donald Trump tells supporters mosques need to be monitored: 'Don't worry about profiling'

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

last updated 8 December 2015

Just a few hours after he released a campaign statement calling for the "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said during a rally in South Carolina that "we have to look at mosques" and urged people who "see violations" to "report those and quickly."

"Don't worry about profiling," Trump told the crowd in Mount Pleasant. "I will defend you from profiling." The U.S. has to be "tough" when it comes to fighting terrorism, he said, as well as "smart" and "vigilant." "Yes, we have to look at mosques, and we have to respect mosques, but yes, we have to look at mosques," he said. "We have no choice. We have to see what's happening. Something is happening in there; man, there's anger, and we have to know about it.... We can't be people that knew what was going on two weeks ago in California, probably for months they knew what was going on and they didn't want to tell anybody."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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