The United States will have "absolutely no choice" but to close down some mosques where "some bad things are happening," Donald Trump said in a recent interview, explaining his rationale for doing so.

"Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice," the Republican presidential said in an interview from Trump Tower on Fox News' "Hannity" on Tuesday night.

Those remarks go further than Trump did on Monday, when he said he would "strongly consider" closing mosques as part of a response to last Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 and injured hundreds more.

Asked to explain his shifting position by Sean Hannity, Trump remarked that things are "happening a lot faster than anybody understands."

"There’s absolutely no choice. Some really bad things are happening and they're happening fast," he said, taking a dig at President Barack Obama's response to the attacks. "Certainly a lot faster than our president understands because he doesn't understand anything. He doesn't get it. Refuses to even call it by its correct name," which Trump termed "radical Islam."