DHAKA: President Barack Obama has said the Muslim ban proposed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is “not the America we want”.

Treating Muslim-Americans differently will only make the country less safe by increasing division between the West and the Muslim world, he said.

On Monday Trump extended his ban plan to people from all countries with a terror history against the US and the deadly Orlando nightclub shootings justified such action, reports the BBC.

Forty-nine people were killed when Omar Mateen, a US national with Afghan parents, opened fire in a gay club early on Sunday.

Trump said his proposal could be implemented through unilateral executive action, given the president’s power to “suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the president deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States”.

But on Tuesday at the US Treasury in Washington, a visibly angry Obama launched his strongest assault yet on the man who is expected to be confirmed as the Republican nominee next month.

In modern-day America, traumatic events like the massacre in Orlando tend to expose the country’s divisions as much as bringing it together. And that’s especially so in this angry election season.

BDST: 0931 HRS, JUN 15, 2016
BD