The list of countries was less important the the universal nature of the Muslim ban. It was kind of the opposite of the China ban. When it comes to disease, we need to act decisively and universally with care not create loopholes that allow people to pass through. When we are talking about terrorism, banning an entire country doesn't make sense. There has to be some type of vetting for exceptions.

The Muslim ban included people who had already been living in the US for years. These are people who have lives, families, and jobs here. But if they happened to be outside the US when the ban went into effect, they couldn't reenter the country. If they already were in the country, they couldn't leave. They couldn't have their friends or family from back home visit them. There is no logic to a ban of that scale when it comes to preventing terrorism. That is the type of universal ban one creates to stop a pathogen. Except the China ban was full of holes and thousands of Chinese nationals continued to travel to the US. That isn't a plan based on science.

The motivations for both these moves was not rationale. Considering they both came from the same person, a person who has a long documented history of other bigoted actions, his critics connected them with the shared thread of xenophobia.