Fox's Shepard Smith torches Donald Trump's plan: 'The worst, darkest part of all that is America'
During a Tuesday segment discussing Trump's plan, Smith said the Republican presidential front-runner "can't do this" and "he's crazy to even speak of it."
Smith made the comments during an interview with John Bussey, an editor at The Wall Street Journal.
Once Bussey pointed out that segments of the Republican-primary electorate have serious reservations about Islam, Smith further lit into Trump.
"A lot more need to be led by somebody, not to be dragged down the wormhole by some carnival huckster," Smith said of the public. "Somebody needs come up and remind them what this nation is and what we're about and how we dream, the way we were founded, and what our constitution is. He's not representing any of that. He's representing the worst, darkest part of all that is America."
Later in the interview, Smith said that the Republican Party establishment needs Trump to go away in order to avoid backlash from the real-estate mogul's hard-line views.
"It's the worst-kept secret on earth that the establishment needs him to go away," Smith said. "Because if he doesn't go away, there are great fears about what will become of this party as a national party."
Trump has dominated the discussion of the presidential race since Monday afternoon, when he proposed a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the US, including tourists and immigrants. He later clarified that some exceptions would exist for foreign leaders, US citizens, and athletes. But that did little to quell the firestorm.
The billionaire businessman argues that such a ban is necessary to combat the threat of terrorism, especially in the aftermath of the recent terror attack in Paris and last week's mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Both incidents were linked to the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS).
"Where the hatred comes from and why, we'll have to determine," Trump said of Muslims at a Monday-night rally. "We have to figure it out. We can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse. You'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," Trump added, "but it's going to get worse and worse."
Watch Smith and Bussey discussing Trump below:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
(via the left-leaning media-monitoring group Media Matters)