WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John Kerry slammed Donald Trump Sunday, saying the Republican frontrunner’s calls to ban Muslims from entering the United States “endanger national security.”
“To outright ban people, because they belong to one particular religion? That’s just stunningly contrary to the fundamental values of our nation, which were built on tolerance,” Kerry said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” program.
Trump called for the temporary ban earlier this week after a Muslim husband and wife killed 14 people in a shooting rampage in California that has been classified as a terrorist act.
Meanwhile, Trump pushed back against party leaders reportedly looking to block his path to the presidential nomination, saying they were “kidding themselves,” as rival Ted Cruz surged in polls.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Republican powerbrokers argued at a recent dinner that the party should plan to coalesce around an alternative at the nominating convention if Trump storms through the primaries.
“I think they’re making a big mistake. I think I’m the one to beat Hillary,” Trump told Fox News Sunday, referring to the Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. “I think they are rather kidding themselves.”
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump in the lead with 27 percent among Republicans nationally, and other polls give him similar leads in many state contests for the party’s presidential nomination.
Trump ban on Muslims ‘endangers US security’
Trump ban on Muslims ‘endangers US security’
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
