Donald Trump, word for contentious word

The controversial presidential run of celebrity billionaire Donald Trump was built through a series of incendiary phrases, starting with his campaign launch in June when he said Mexico was sending "rapists" to the United States.

 

Leading the polls for the Republican nomination ahead of 13 rivals, Trump is a specialist of disjointed phraseology. He prefers ambiguous threats and rhetoric, but does not hesitate to use the bluntest of attacks when necessary. 

 

Here are some of the many highlights from his six months on the campaign trail.

 

- On Muslims -"I would certainly implement that. Absolutely... There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases."

 

- November 19, after a journalist asked Trump if he favored registering Muslims in a database.

 

"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."

 

- December 7 campaign statement.

 

- On Mexicans, immigration -"If I win, they're going back. They're going back, I'm telling you."

 

- September 30 discussing the fate of Syrian refugees in the United States during a rally.

 

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best... They're sending people that have lots of problems... They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

 

- June 16 at Trump campaign launch in New York.

 

"I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words."

 

- June 16.

 

"You're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely."

 

- November 11, about rounding up and deporting more than 11 million undocumented immigrants.

 

- On extremist threat -"We're going to have more World Trade Centers. It's going to get worse and worse, folks. We can be politically correct and we can be stupid but it's going to be worse and worse."

 

- December 7 at a rally.

 

"You don't want to hear how I'd handle it. I would get myself in so much trouble with them, we are going to handle it so tough."

 

- December 4 on the terrorist threat, two days after 14 people were shot dead in California. 

 

- On Obama -"Am I morally obligated to defend the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don't think so!"

 

- September 19 on Twitter, after a supporter said President Barack Obama was Muslim and not American.

 

- On a female journalist -"She starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever."

 

- August 7, criticizing Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly after she harshly questioned him during the first Republican Party debate.

 

- On other Republicans -"He said he's got pathological disease... If you're a child molester, a sick puppy, you're a child molester. There's no cure for that."

 

- November 12, about retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a Republican rival for the presidency. 

 

"Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" 

 

- In the September 9 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, discussing Republican contender Carly Fiorina.

 

"He's not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, OK, I hate to tell you."

 

- July 18, on Senator and 2008 Republican nominee John McCain. AFP