Let's try to clear this up

This post on the front page had a comment section that was a bit of a mess. I'm going to attempt to clear some of this up in a clearer way. When I can, I'll link to direct sources and avoid giving any opinions. Note: I am not a reporter, and I'm not trained in journalism.

As far as I can tell, the initial source of all of this was a yahoo article: https://www.yahoo.com/politics/donald-trump-has-big-plans-1303117537878070.html

The only place that I've been able to find the audio for this interview is within a segment of the Rachel Maddow show. I know that she isn't exactly unbiased, but I will say that in this segment she isn't running around screaming "Trump is Hitler!". The entire segment is worth watching, but the audio for the yahoo interview starts at about 2:20. I'll also type it out below.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-endorses-tracking-muslims-in-us-570404931570

Interviewer: France declared this state of emergency where they closed the border and established some degree of warrantless searches. I know you you feel about borders, but do you think there's some kind of state of emergency here and do we need warrantless searches of Muslims?

Trump: Well, we're gonna have to do things that we've never done before, and some people are going to be upset about it. But I think that now everybody is feeling security is going to rule and certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. So we're going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago, when you at what's happening.

Interviewer: And in terms of doing this, to pull off the kind of tracking we need, do you think we might need to register Muslims in some type of database, or note their religion on their ID?

Trump: Well, we're going to have to look at a lot of things very closely. We're going to have to look at the mosques, we're going to have to look very, very carefully.

Snopes reported that the headline of "Trump calls for special ID's for Muslims" (and other variations) was a mixture of true and false. They credit an article published on The Hill as the origin of the story.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/260727-trump-wont-rule-out-database-special-id-for-muslims

This article focused on the part of the Yahoo interview I linked to above. After The Hill published this, it was picked up by many other news (and "news") sites. That's probably about when it landed on Imgur.

Snopes article (which was linked to many times in the comments of the original post): http://www.snopes.com/donald-trump-muslims-id/

Trump was asked about it again in an interview the next day (or later that day?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q4SDWMnjak

This is again something that appeared on the Rachel Maddow show, and the link is to MSNBC's channel, but we're still looking at the source, and Trump's actual words, which I'll again type out below:

Interviewer: Should there be a database system that tracks Muslims here in the country?

Trump: There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases.We should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border, we have to have strength, we have to have a wall, and we cannot let what's happening in this country happen [at all? anymore?].

Interviewer: But is that something your White House would like to implement?

Trump: Oh, I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.

Interviewer: What do you think the effect of that would be? How would that work?

Trump: It would stop people from coming in illegally. We have to stop people from coming into our country illegally.

Interviewer: But Muslims specifically, how would you get them registered?

Trump: It would just be good management. What you have to do is good management procedures. And we can do that.

Interviewer: Do you force- do you go to mosques to sign these people up?

Trump: Different places. You sign them up at different-- but it's all about management. Our country has no management.

Interviewer: Would they have to legally be in the database?

Trump: They have to be legal, they have to-- let me just tell you. The key is that people can come into this country, but they have to come legally. Thank you very much.

Trump was asked about how a database would compare to Nazi policies. Again, I couldn't find a source for this other than within the Rachel Maddow Show, starting at 9:33

Interviewer: Mr. Trump, why would Muslim databases not be the same as requiring Jews to register in Nazi Germany? What would be the difference?

Is there a difference between the two?

Trump: Who are you with?

Interviewer: I'm with NBC News

Is there a difference between requiring Muslims to register and Jews in Nazi Germany?

Trump: You tell me. You tell me.

Interviewer: Do you believe--?

Trump: Why don't you tell me?

Interviewer: Do you believe there is?

Trump: You tell me.

Interviewer: Should Muslims be fearful? Would there be consequences if they don't register?

+Here are more articles about it from differently leaning sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/donald-trump-says-hed-absolutely-require-muslims-to-register/?_r=1

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/19/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-threat-to-country/ (This also has video of the interview, but I don't like that they cut it up)

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/20/9769270/trump-muslim-database-register
This article does a better job of trying to explain it, but puts the blame for the confusion of the second interviewer, who was (alert: this is my opinion) more attempting to clear it up than get a headline. I personally believe that it was the original yahoo interviewer who puts words into Trump's mouth. The NBC interviewer was giving Trump a chance to make his views clearer.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34873057

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3326456/Trump-blasts-Syrian-refugees-look-like-soldiers-pledges-turn-away-president-says-certainly-implement-database-track-U-S-Muslims.html

I won't be surprised if in the next few days we get a clearer answer from Trump's campaign about this.

tl;dr: Don't always trust the tl;dr.