Trump recommits to banning Muslims from entering US if he is re-elected

‘We were very tough on that. We don’t want our buildings blown up’

Donald Trump has vowed to restore a travel ban on Islamic nations, prohibiting citizens of those countries from entering the US, if he is elected president in 2024.

"I will restore my travel ban to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country," the twice-impeached former president said in New Hampshire on Thursday.

"You saw what happened. Four years… You saw that right? We were very tough on that. We don't want our buildings blown up."

Mr Trump, during his first week in office in 2017, restricted travel from seven Muslim-majority nations – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

While the order was at first blocked by the courts and the White House scrambled to say it was not a ban on Muslims, the Supreme Court in 2018 upheld the final version of the measure.

The ban was overturned by president Joe Biden after he took office in 2021. White House said it will improve the screening of visitors by strengthening information sharing with foreign governments instead of retaining the blanket ban.

Mr Trump's appearance in New Hampshire marked his first return to an early voting state since his legal troubles increased with an indictment in New York.

He spoke on the same day that his former vice president, Mike Pence, testified before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by Mr Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. Author E Jean Carroll testified as well in a civil rape case against Mr Trump over an encounter in the 1990s, an allegation he denies.

The former president announced that he is "retiring" the "Crooked" nickname for Hillary Clinton and will instead be using it going forward for President Biden.

“I will be retiring the name ‘Crooked’ from Hillary Clinton and her moniker, and I’m going to give her a new name, I don’t know, like maybe ‘Lovely Hillary’ or ‘Beautiful Hillary', but I’m going to retire the name ‘Crooked’ because he will be known from now on as ‘Crooked Joe Biden',” Mr Trump said.

As the crowd cheered and whistled, the former president launched a sizeable accusation at Mr Biden, the candidate who beat him handily in both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2020.

“There’s never been anyone in the history of American politics so crooked or dishonest as Joe Biden, and the press absolutely refuses to report it – all that press back there – because, frankly, they’re just as crooked as he is, and they are,” Mr Trump said at a downtown Manchester hotel, a smaller venue than his typical, large-scale rallies.

“The choice in this election is now between strength and weakness, between success and failure, between safety and anarchy, between peace and conflict and prosperity or catastrophe,” he continued.

“We are a nation in serious decline, a nation that has lost its way,” Trump said, adding that the country is led by a "hopeless person".

"But we will win in 2024 and make America great again. We can do it. It’s not too late."