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Donald Trump Delivers Address on Terrorism. Aired 3-3:30p ET
Aired August 15, 2016 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:02]
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The death penalty is very, very common if you don't have the faith that they demand you have.
A Trump administration will establish a clear principle that will govern all decisions pertaining to immigration. And we will be tough, and we will be even extreme, extreme.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people.
In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today. I call it extreme vetting. I call it extreme, extreme vetting.
Our country has enough problems. We don't need more. And these are problems like we have never had before.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: In addition to screening out all members of the sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes toward our country or its principles or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Those who do not believe in our Constitution or who support bigotry and hatred will not be admitted for immigration into our country.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Only those who we expect to flourish in our country, and to embrace a tolerant American society, should be issued visas.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: To put these new procedures in place, we will have to temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism.
Not for us. Not for us.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
TRUMP: Thank you.
As soon as I take office, I will ask the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to identify a list of regions where adequate screening cannot take place.
There are many such regions. We will stop processing visas from those areas until such time as it is deemed safe to resume based on new circumstances or new procedures.
The size of current immigration flows are simply too large to perform adequate screening.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We admit about 100,000 permanent immigrants from the Middle East every year. Beyond that, we admit hundreds of thousands of temporary workers and visitors from the same regions, hundreds of thousands. If we don't control the numbers, we can't perform adequate screening. There's no way it can take place.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: By contrast, my opponent wants to increase, which is unbelievable -- no matter who you are, no matter where you come from -- wants to increase the flow of refugees by 550 percent over what they are now.
(BOOING)
TRUMP: The United States Senate Subcommittee on Immigration estimates that Hillary Clinton's plan would mean roughly 620,000 refugees from all current refugee-sending nations in her first term, assuming no cuts to other refugee programs.
So, it could get worse. This would be additional to all other non- refugee immigration. Unbelievable numbers. Unbelievable numbers.
The subcommittee estimated her plan women impose a lifetime cost of roughly $400 billion when you include the costs of health care, welfare, housing, schooling, and all other entitlement benefits that are excluded from the State Department's placement figures.
[15:05:08]
Think of this, $400 billion.
In short, Hillary Clinton wants to be America's Angela Merkel.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Yes.
(BOOING)
TRUMP: And you know what a disaster this massive immigration has been to Germany and the people of Germany.
Crime has risen to levels that no one thought they would ever, ever see. It's a catastrophe. We have enough problems in our country. We don't need more.
Lastly, we will need to restore common sense to our security procedures. Another common feature of the past attacks that have occurred on our soil is that warning signs were totally ignored.
The 9/11 hijackers had fraud all over their visa applications. Almost every one of them, it said, practically in big bold letters, fraud, and nobody saw it.
The Russians warned us about the Boston bombers here on political asylum, and the attackers were even twice interviewed by the FBI. Very sad.
The female San Bernardino shooter, on her -- on her statements, and everything that she said, she was here on a fiancee visa, which most people have never even heard of, from Saudi Arabia ask. And she wanted to support very openly jihad online.
These are the people we're taking in. A neighbor saw suspicious behavior, bombs on the floor, and other things, but didn't warn authorities, because they said they didn't want to be accused of racial profiling. Now many are dead, and many more are gravely wounded.
The shooter in Orlando reportedly celebrated in his classroom after 9/11. He, too, was interviewed by the FBI. His father, a native of Afghanistan, supported the oppressive Taliban regime, and expressed anti-American views very strongly, and, by the way, was just seen sitting behind Hillary Clinton with a big fat smile on his face, all the way through her speech.
(BOOING)
TRUMP: He obviously liked what she had to say.
It's called weakness. Weakness. It's called stupidity. And we have had it.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: The Fort Hood shooter delivered a presentation to a room full of mental health experts before the attacks in which he threw out one red flag after another.
He even proclaimed that, "We love death more than you love life."
Not good. These warning signs were ignored because political correctness has replaced common sense in our society.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
TRUMP: Thank you.
That is why one of my first acts as president will be to establish a commission on radical Islam, which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us.
We want to build bridges and erase divisions. The goal of the commission will be to identify and explain to the American public the core convictions and beliefs of radical Islam, to identify the warning signs of radicalization, and to expose the networks in our society that support radicalization.
This commission will be used to develop new protocols for local police officers, federal investigators and immigration screeners.
[15:10:01]
And while I'm at it, we should give hand to our great police officers and law enforcement officials.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
TRUMP: Thank you.
We will also keep open Guantanamo Bay and place a renewed emphasis on human intelligence.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Drone strikes will remain part of our strategy, but we will also seek to capture high-value targets to gain needed information to dismantle their organizations.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Foreign combatants will be tried in military commissions.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Finally, we will pursue aggressive criminal or immigration charges against anyone who lends material support to terrorism. There will be consequences for those people.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: There will be very serious consequences.
Similar to the effort to take down the mafia, this will be the understood mission of every federal investigator and prosecutor in the country.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: To accomplish a goal, you must state a mission.
The support networks for radical Islam in this country will be stripped out and removed one by one, viciously, if necessary, viciously, if necessary.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Immigration officers will also have their powers restored. Those...
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Been taken away.
Those who are guests in our country that are preaching hate will be asked to return home immediately. And if they don't do it, we will return them home.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: To make America safe again, we must work together again. Our victory in the Cold War relied on a bipartisan and international consensus. That is what we must have to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: But just like we couldn't defeat communism without acknowledging that communism exists, or explaining its horrible evils, we can't defeat radical Islamic terrorism unless we do the exact same thing.
We have to explain that it exists and explain the difficulties. We have to have a leader that can do that, and we don't have that now.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: But this also means that we have to promote the exceptional virtues our of our own way of life. We have an exceptional country, an exceptional way of life.
But it's being tread on by sick, sick people, and expecting that, as newcomers come into our society, they will likewise have respect and do the same.
Pride in our institutions, our history, and our values should be taught by parents and teachers and impressed upon all of those who come into our society and want to join our society.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Assimilation is not an act of hostility, but an expression of compassion.
Our system of government and our American culture is the best in the world, and will produce the best outcomes for all who adopt it.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you.
This approach will not only make us safer, but bring us closer together as a country. Renewing the spirit of Americanism will help heal the divisions in our country, of which there are so many.
[15:15:00]
We have a divider as president. We call him the great divider. It's the thing he does best.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: It will do so by emphasizing what we have in common, not what pulls us apart.
This is my pledge to the American people. As your president, I will be your single greatest champion.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I will fight to ensure that every American is treated equally, protected equally, and honored equally.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We will reject bigotry and hatred and oppression in all of its many ugly forms, and seek a new future built on our common culture and values as one American people.
Only this way will we make America great again and safe again for everyone.
Thank you very much. God bless you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so there you have it, for the past 40 minutes or so, a significant speech there delivered on terror both abroad and here at home from the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, there in the key swing state of Ohio.
I have a panel of experts and reporters standing by, so let's just get right to it. And, general Wesley Clark, let me just bring you in first. I know you're a supporter of Hillary Clinton's, and just a look at how he opened this speech, ticking off all the different cities both here and abroad, terror attacks, ISIS-directed attacks, ISIS-inspired attacks and the fact that he said we can not let this evil continue.
He said the rise of ISIS is a direct result of decisions by Obama and Hillary Clinton. Now, you can argue that, but can you argue, when you look at all of these attacks, that it has gotten better under this current administration, General?
WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: I think you have to argue that this is a problem that has to be worked. And that's exactly what the administration is doing, and that's what Hillary will do.
But I think you do have to argue with the fact that it was caused by Barack Obama. All of the problems he cites with Iraq began, including the nation-building, begin with George Bush.
And the idea that we would leave U.S. troops there to guard oil wells and oil refineries and pipelines and take their oil is -- it's crazy. MacArthur did not do that. General MacArthur didn't do that. General Patton wouldn't have done that.
So, all that part of the speech shows that Mr. Trump doesn't really understand. Now, we have a problem with ISIS and we have to work it, but it's not the only national security problem we have. We have a problem with Russia. We have a problem in the South China Sea. We have many problems that we're working simultaneously.
And I guess the thing that struck me most about Mr. Trump's speech was that he was so simplistically focused on ISIS. Just take this example.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Why is that being simple? Why is that being simplistic?
CLARK: Because when you say that you're going to be an ally with anybody that fights ISIS, there are many people fighting ISIS that may have conflicting interests with you in other parts of the world.
And you have to have a sophisticated enough understanding of foreign policy to be able to handle all this. I know that Hillary Clinton can handle that. She can fight against ISIS. She can deal with Putin effectively in Eastern Europe. She can work effectively with China and with China's neighbors in the South China Sea.
I don't know that Mr. Trump can do that from this speech on national security. What I see is a single-minded focus on one problem. And I don't a solution to it. Everything he cited that he would do is being done right now by this administration in terms of cyber, working with allies, and all that in the Middle East. Everything.
BALDWIN: OK, General, let me thank you. Let me come back to you in a second.
But let me just go to our Trump supporter, John Hajjar.
CLARK: OK.
BALDWIN: And, so, John, just quickly, a specific question and one we just heard Mr. Trump reference, when it comes to terror suspects either abroad or here at home, that he would handle them with extreme and vicious measures.
JOHN HAJJAR, CO-CHAIR, AMERICAN MIDEAST COALITION FOR TRUMP: Yes.
BALDWIN: What did he mean specifically by that?
HAJJAR: Well, I think we're going to enforce the laws that are on the book.
But just I would like to make a quick comment in response to General Clark.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Could you actually first answer my question, with all due respect? Could you answer my question? And then I promise we will give you time to do that.
HAJJAR: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
HAJJAR: The specific response to you question is, we will enforce laws that are on the book that are not being enforced now.
When someone commits a crime and they are not eligible -- I'm not an immigration law expert, but I'm sure there are provisions of the law that are not being focused on by this administration, that are being ignored by this administration that will call for somebody losing their resident status.
[15:20:05]
You don't automatically get your citizenship. It's a process. And we will vet these individuals, making sure that they pledge allegiance to this country, as Mr. Trump said. The U.S. Constitution will take precedence over Sharia law under a Trump administration.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Understood, but I think he was referencing the extreme vetting.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: If I may, what he was saying, terror suspects, he had referenced in the past fighting fire with fire, talking water- boarding, and that's where I was going. So, you don't believe when he said vicious measures that he was
referencing that the U.S. should water-board?
HAJJAR: Well, I think the president will follow our Constitution.
It's not being followed now. Whatever the law allows, the law allows justice. And I think that a Trump presidency will make sure that justice is done for people that seek to do us harm. And he mentioned that that will bring us together, not divide us.
(CROSSTALK)
HAJJAR: And my response to the general is, he has not engaged whatsoever the moderates in the Muslim community.
Our organization, American Mideast Coalition for Trump, is the largest ever assembled Mideast group. We have Kurds, we have Turks, we have Arabs, we have Chaldeans, we have Egyptians, we have Copts, Christian, every kind of Muslim, every kind of Christian.
And universally, we have seen the failure of this administration, which would be furthered by a Hillary Clinton administration, where the radicals are being engaged like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian regime, which is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, completely to the detriment on the people on the ground in the Middle East.
They have suffered tremendously. We talk -- as an American, of course we're so concerned with the suffering of Americans at the hands of terror and Western Europeans, but nobody is taking it on the chin, but nobody's putting their necks literally on the line more than the people in the Middle East, especially the ethnic and religious minorities there.
And we have done nothing whatever in seven years. Believe me, I have been knocking on the doors. And they have been slammed in my face for seven years from this administration that only wants to the likes of Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Muslim Brotherhood- affiliated organizations.
On the Sunni side and the Shiite side, they have dealt, they have bent over backwards to make the deal with the Iranian regime, the evil the Iranian regime.
BALDWIN: General Clark, would you like to respond to that?
CLARK: Certainly.
I know for a fact that the Obama administration has done outreach after outreach to the Muslim-American community. I can't speak to the specifics of the organization John is with. There are dozens and dozens of Muslim-American organizations. I have talked to many of them myself personally.
And they are working very hard, they are working closely with the Obama administration. They're also giving a lot of guidance to the Obama administration. They're most concerned about the welfare of their own people and how people are going to be treating them and making sure that their Muslim-American community doesn't support ISIS.
So, I have found these groups to be extremely patriotic, found them to be good Americans. That's who they are. That's why they came here and that's why they stay here.
So I think the charge that the Obama administration is not doing enough with the Muslim-American community is just absolutely wrong. And I can promise you, from everything I know about Hillary Clinton and the people around Hillary Clinton, she will do everything she can with the Muslim-American community.
BALDWIN: OK. Let me go to London.
(CROSSTALK)
HAJJAR: I could give you specifics if you like, General. That's just not the case.
BALDWIN: Just a minute, gentlemen, to both of you.
Clarissa, let me just pivot to you. Clarissa Ward is our senior international correspondent. She's been to all these countries that we have heard referenced both from Mr. Trump and also from Hillary Clinton.
First, just your initial thoughts on the speech.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: My initial thoughts, a lot of it, as General Clark just said, seemed to be stating the obvious or stating things that the U.S. is already doing, cut off funding, develop allies, stop recruitment.
Well, yes, stopping recruitment is a great idea. How do we do it? You heard Trump proposing that we cut off the Internet in those areas. I'm not sure how exactly that would work, but I'm pretty sure it would limit the abilities of our intelligence services to collect valuable intel on these men who are fighting with ISIS, because, of course, the Internet is how much so much surveillance is being done by our security services.
He talked about fostering better relations with allies that embrace his notion of moderate Islam. He cited President Sisi of Egypt and the king of Jordan. But, of course, Egypt and Jordan already have very close ties to the U.S., and indeed the U.S. spends a lot of funding on help both of those countries.
He seemed to have a much more bombastic stance when it came to countries like Iran and to Saudi Arabia, but it remains unclear how one would navigate the waters of essentially being the leader of the free world as the U.S. while having no strong relationship with those two countries, which, of course, are the two main countries in the region.
[15:25:02] He also talked about Syria and Libya, and he singled them out as these
are both examples of absolute disasters of the Obama presidency. But, of course, in the case of Libya, we saw an active U.S. intervention, and with certain -- certainly disastrous consequences, though there have been some major gains on the ground against ISIS by U.S.-backed forces last week.
But, in Syria, there have been very little action from the U.S. and no intervention. So it doesn't seem a fair way to compare them directly, when they're both different and contradicting policies. So, all in all, Brooke, I would say there were a lot of suggestions that seem to contradict each other and quite a few that, quite frankly, are already being done on the ground.
BALDWIN: I do want to follow up with you, or perhaps Ben Wedeman in a moment, just about how he painted back in 2009 Libya, Iraq and Syria as more stable and less violent and how he had said ISIS -- quoting him -- was close to being extinguished, or the group we now know to be ISIS.
But, Gayle, let me just pivot to you quickly on how he talks about U.S. allies and how he mentioned anyone willing to help -- if you fight terror, thus you become an ally of the United States.
And my question to you is, is he redefining what it means to be an ally of the U.S.?
GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Yes, I mean, I think this whole speech was a series of disparate pieces that don't necessarily fit into the same puzzle.
And that's what's so interesting, because in places like Syria, you do see Americans really working with allies who don't necessarily share broader American values. And to Clarissa's point about what we're seeing from the speech, you know, nation-building is something that Trump said, this is the end of it.
But if you go back to Obama speeches, as early as May 2011, June 2012, he was saying it's time to focus on nation-building here at home. And when you talk to senior military folks, they say that's actually part of the problem, was that there's a vacuum, the vacuum Trump talks about, that was created in part because nation-building, which is a 14-letter word, has become this four-letter word in the minds of many people looking at U.S. foreign policy.
And the vacuum that that is creating, which is creating the need even more for allies who don't necessarily share American values are really leading, in many people's views, to vacuums on the ground that then make a fertile territory for groups like ISIS.
So, I think that there are disparate pieces here that do not necessarily convert.
BALDWIN: So, that was one piece he talked about, talking about U.S. allies under a Trump presidency.
And to Phil Mudd.
He talked about people who would want to come into the United States, referenced the Cold War and ideological screening then and called what he would call extreme vetting, so if you try to come into the United States, there would be a test for entry, if you are anti-Semitic, anti-gay, or other views that would conflict with U.S. values.
A, would it be enforceable? B, that would be constitutional, Phil?
PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I don't know if it would be constitutional.
I can tell you I don't think it would be enforceable, with one major asterisk. And let's get to that, because he didn't address it. When you have a screening process on the front end -- let's take the San Bernardino killers. How confident are we that they are not going to walk in saying, I'm a loyal American, I want to be a loyal American?
The question to me is simply, once they get here and they do something wrong -- we have typically been very welcoming to people once they arrive. What he's suggesting is a fundamental choice for American voters. Do you want to be quicker to tell somebody who has some of the rights of the Americans that we're going to expel them if we see, for example, ISIS-sympathetic literature on a Facebook post, if a neighbor says I heard him say something about ISIS?
It's not screening on the front end. It's what you do on the back end.
BALDWIN: So, these are the policies.
Let me just pivot and talk politics, David Chalian, our CNN director. I jotted down this note that jumped out at me when he said Hillary Clinton lacks -- quote -- "the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS."
Mental and physical stamina, listen, I don't have Donald Trump here to explain precisely what he means, but what might he be referring to?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, this is actually an argument he's been making about Hillary Clinton for months and months.
You will remember that he successfully labeled Jeb Bush as low-energy and that had sticking power in the primary season. He was also putting out this kind of language about Hillary Clinton for the last many months too, again, a message of his strength vs. her weakness in the way he frames this.
But, Brooke, I do think, just looking back at this politically for a moment...
BALDWIN: Sure.
CHALIAN: ... Donald Trump is on firmer ground today. Having -- debating among all your guests his specific proposals or vision is a place that is a stronger political place for him than a campaign that is in crisis and concerned that they can't keep him on message.
So, to me, politically, the argument that he made today, I actually think he made very early in the speech. I think it was when he went through Libya and Syria and Iraq and Egypt and he pointed to the way all those places looked in January 2009, before the Obama/Clinton administration came into place, and then how they look now.
