Later in the same ABC show, Carson, a former neurosurgeon, was asked if he would support Trump’s call to bring back the controversial interrogation technique. “We’ve got to find out what it is”. Images of people cheering in Middle Eastern countries on 9/11 were broadcast on television.
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Trump also accused residents of New Jersey of cheering the September 11, 2001, fall of the World Trade Center towers.
A spokesman for Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop did not immediately return a message seeking comment early Sunday morning.
The significance of the remarks from Trump and Carson within the conservative debate following the Paris attacks that killed 130 people was underlined by a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that had the two outsiders holding tight to their commanding national lead over all other Republican presidential candidates.
It was the latest in a string of inflammatory comments Trump has made recently regarding the threat of terrorism in the wake of the Paris attacks last month. “And let me tell you”, Trump said, “the people who aren’t involved in those mosques – they know who the bad ones are… but they don’t talk”. And I don’t care.
“You have very, very tough people that you’re dealing with”. They’re going to make it so big.
He said it would require the beefing up of United States intelligence capabilities.
“I don’t want to close mosques; I want to surveil mosques”, he said. “If that’s okay”, he continued.
“There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations”, he said.
In 2012, Muslim leaders in New Jersey filed a lawsuit against the NYPD for its surveillance in the Garden State.
Trump also said those on terror watch lists should be restricted from purchasing guns if they are a known “enemy of state”.
The candidate has been in a back and forth with reporters beginning with a Yahoo!
‘We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely.
What Trump advocated during the interview was a database for Muslims, torture, spying on religious buildings, and not doing anything to stop criminals from getting guns. “And we’re talking about waterboarding”, Trump said. “And I’m signing autographs and there’s music playing in the background and I’m leaving – bing bing bing, signing – and this little wise guy’s sitting there, and he’s asking me questions”.
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Mr Trump has since suggested the database would be “just for Syrian refugees”, but when asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos if he would unequivocally rule out a database on all Muslims, he replied: “No, not at all”. They don’t use waterboarding, they used chopping off peoples heads.
