Trump campaign wipes mention of 'Muslim ban' from website

After being elected America's 45th president, Trump's statement promising discriminatory immigration measures has conveniently disappeared from his website.

Narrated

3 min read

Taufiq Wan

10 Nov, 2016

Trump recently said that 'extreme vetting' would replace the 'Muslim ban' [Getty]

Donald Trump's campaign team has removed a statement from his website calling for a ban on Muslims, just as the business tycoon became America's president-elect.

The page linking Trump's statement about banning Muslims from entering the US seems to have been removed when it became clear that he had defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

A search for the anti-Muslim statement now leads to a page urging donations for the Trump-Pence campaign.

The removed statement said, "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," and was on the site since December 2015.

According to online caches, the page was still available on the eve of election day, November 8. Cache websites intermittently copy and store website content for later reference.

Trump's 'Muslim ban' drew international condemnation, with the now president-elect having reiterated his committment to the policy following several terror attacks in the US and Europe. He touted the draconian measure as a way of allowing US security services to figure out "what the hell was going on".

Closer to election day, however, he somewhat softened his committment to the ban, saying that it would culminate in a form of "extreme vetting".

Given the more concilliatory tone adopted by Trump in his election victory speech, there is much speculation over whether Trump will really carry out the controversial key planks of his campaign.

On Wednesday, Trump promised to lead a "movement comprised of people from all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs".

With a Republican majority in both legislative chambers, Trump is one of the most powerful US presidents in years - provided his party remains united behind him.

This could potentially allow him to push through his key campaign promises, which includes repealing Obama's Affordable Care Act, building a border wall with Mexico and scrapping free trade agreements.

Trump also promised to launch an investigation into Clinton's missing emails, a call that caused the chant "lock her up" to reverberate numerous times at Trump rallies.

At the second presidential debate, the property tycoon told the former First lady that he would "instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your [missing email] situation."

Clinton replied by saying it was "just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country," to which Trump responded: "Because you'd be in jail".

This is not the first time, however, that information has quietly disappeared from one of Trump's websites.

Following suggestions that the 70-year-old's wife Melania did finish her university degree, the future First Lady's biography was removed from a Trump website. This was replaced with a redirect to a page about a Trump golf course.