We will work side-by-side with our friends in the Middle East including our greatest ally Israel. He also articulated one for reviving his flailing campaign. The Republican nominee talked of building bridges.
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“I couldn’t believe the younger people that feel very strongly for Trump”. He vowed to keep Guantanamo Bay open, to join Russian Federation to battle terrorism in the Middle East and to launch a “commission” on radical Islam.
The Republican nominee has made stricter immigration measures a central part of his proposals for defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a battle he said Monday is akin to the Cold War struggle against communism.
According to a report in The Washington Post, Trump called “extreme vetting” for “any hostile attitude towards USA or its principles, or who believed sharia law should supplant American law”. In Egypt, terrorists have gained a foothold in the Sinai Peninsula near the Suez Canal, one of the most important passageways in the world. It was United States voters themselves as he sought to bail out a campaign sinking after an erratic performance that has sent him tumbling in the polls.
He said his administration would “aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”, and be a “friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East”.
Trump stated that the Democratic Party who has been leading the U.S. for the past 8 years is responsible for the lack of stability in the Middle East, noting events in Syria, Libya, Egypt and Iran as examples: “The rise of ISIS is the direct result of policy decisions made by President Obama and Secretary Clinton”. Libya was stable. Syria was under control.
Trump’s address comes during a trying stretch for his presidential campaign.
By the way, don’t miss this interview at Foreign Policy by Aaron David Miller with Robert Malley, the president’s top Middle East policy official – “A Defense of Obama’s Middle East ‘Balancing Act”. But the real estate mogul is banking on his hawkish stance striking a nerve with a scared public looking for strong leadership.
Trump also advocated suspension of immigration from the countries exporting terrorism although he avoided mentioning the term “Muslim-majority nations” the way he had done in the past. Instead, Trump once again went out of his way to call for closer ties with that country.
Trump said that every federal investigator and prosecutor in the country will work with a clear mission of stripping out the support networks of radical Islam in the US. “Viciously if necessary”, he pledged.
“She lacks the judgement, stability and character to lead our nation”, he said.
He also challenged Clinton’s fitness to be president, declaring she lacks the “mental and physical stamina” to take on the Islamic State.
Just last week, the candidate squandered his campaign’s attempt to reboot with an economic speech by suggesting “Second Amendment people” might commit violence against Clinton (which the campaign denied), accusing the president and Clinton of founding a terrorist organization, and calling for citizens to monitor polling stations.
Recent polls show him significantly trailing Hillary Clinton in key battleground states. I give him the most valuable player award. The crowd was silent, except for a few noticeable gasps, as Kasich, a failed Republican presidential candidate who lost to Trump, has refused to endorse the GOP nominee.
“Donald Trump has been all over the place on ISIS”.
Even some critics within his own party jumped on Trump’s speech Monday.
“It was a series of slogans without any policy behind it”. I call it extreme, extreme vetting.
Screening of potential immigrants and asylum-seekers for possible connections to terrorism is a matter of common sense as well as national security. Nor did the campaign say whether additional screenings would apply to the millions of tourists who spend billions of dollars visiting the United States each year. This act was passed in the context of the Cold War, as Mr. Trump noted, and it gives the president extensive power to investigate and bar potential immigrants who might threaten U.S. security.
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“Mr. Trump has been building his case slowly and surely through the campaign”, Brookover told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin. Some immigration officials wonder how this test would catch potential radicals more effectively than the current vetting process, which requires United States government officials to share intelligence data with immigration services, and USA security agents are posted in high-risk nations to help with vetting.
