Will Trump's Muslim Ban Be Included in the GOP Platform?

Sen. John Barrasso believes Donald Trump will “embrace” the GOP platform.

ByABC News
May 29, 2016, 11:27 AM

— -- For those who worry that Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will stray from the party’s core ideology, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso wants to be clear: he won’t.

Sen. Barrasso, who will chair the Republican Platform Committee at the party's convention in Cleveland this summer, said he believes Trump will "embrace" the GOP platform.

What’s still unclear is what that platform will include, as the GOP struggles between traditional party policy and Trump’s key campaign promises.

Chief among those promises is Trump’s temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

When asked by ABC News' Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl whether the ban would be part of the platform, Barrasso did not say no.

“It's going to be a conservative platform that's going to be positive, optimistic, looking to the future, focused on things like jobs, the economy, and national security," Barrasso said on "This Week” on Sunday. "And what he was focused on with that ban is national security.”

When pressed, Barrasso deferred to the delegates who will meet in July.

“It's 112 members of the platform committee, and we've asked Donald Trump to allow the process to play out. He has agreed to do that. And I've asked him personally to embrace the platform and I believe he will. National security will be a big part of it,” he said.

On reforming Social Security and Medicare, an issue close to the heart of House Speaker Paul Ryan and other fiscal conservatives, Trump has also stood in contrast to most Republicans, saying he would not touch any entitlement programs.

Barrasso took a harder line against that.

“They need to continue and be reformed and strengthened so they're there for future generations. And I believe that will be part of the Republican platform coming out of the convention,” he said.

But on immigration, the Republican leader said there will be negotiation with Trump, who has campaigned on a strong anti-illegal immigration platform, centered around building a southern border wall and deporting 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

“The platform committee is going to meet on talking about all of these things, and there's going to be agreements with Donald Trump, there's going to be disagreements,” said Barrasso, noting that there may be a “maze” of discussions for the Republican Platform Committee to work through this summer, but the Democrats are going to have to work “through a minefield, which could be explosive.”

“They are deeply divided," he said, but regarding his own party, "I believe we're going to come out of Cleveland united so we can win in November and get the country headed in the right direction.”