Phila. mayor says Donald Trump should be banned from the city

The uproar over presidential candidate Donald Trump's support of banning Muslim immigrants met a strong and unexpected critic on Tuesday: Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

In a statement on Monday, Trump, a 1968 Wharton graduate, said, "Our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."

His comments drew a sharp rebuke from Nutter, a 1979 Wharton graduate, who said he supported banning Trump from the city.

"We have no place for that kind of ignorance and tolerance and lack of understanding of what our country is about,” Nutter said in an address to the media on Tuesday.

Philadelphia has been roiled in controversy since Monday, when a severed pig's head was found outside a North Philadelphia mosque. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Daily News jumped into the fray with a cover depicting Trump with his arm raised in a salute reminiscent of Adolf Hitler, captioned "The New Furor." Nutter also used the German dictator as a point of comparison.

“[Trump] has taken a page from the playbook of Hitler: Demonize a group, blame that group for our country’s problems and then seek to ban or eliminate that group as some kind of solution to a problem that does not exist," Nutter said. 

Police are investigating the pig's head, which was placed outside the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society on Germantown Avenue. In his address, Nutter reiterated his support for the Muslim community and urged vigilance against any further desecrations.

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