During a disastrous interview on ABC’s This Week, Donald Trump imploded and revealed that he knew nothing about terrorism while handing Democrats a golden opportunity to win in 2016.
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Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve also talked about you want to keep the terror watchlist, but under current law individuals on the terror watchlist and the no-fly list have been allowed to buy guns and explosives. Are you OK with that?
TRUMP: We have to have a watchlist, and if that watchlist has somebody that’s — you know, we have — you know, we have the laws right now. We have the laws already on the books as far as Second Amendment for guns, and as you know I’m a big, big, really big proponent of the Second Amendment.
If in — I’ll give you an example. If in Paris some of those people, those — and if you had some of those people had guns, you wouldn’t have had the horror show that you had with nobody…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But why should someone on the watch list…
TRUMP: — out of hundreds of people (INAUDIBLE)…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — be able to have a gun?
TRUMP: No, no. You — if people are on a watch list or people are sick, you have already — this is already covered in the legislation that we already have, George. It’s already fully covered.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but under current law…
TRUMP: But we have…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — people on the watch list…
TRUMP: — if we have an enemy at stake…
STEPHANOPOULOS: — are allowed to buy guns.
TRUMP: Listen, George, if we have an enemy of state, I don’t want to give him anything. I want to have him in jail, that’s what I want. I want to have him in jail.
But if those people in Paris had guns in that room, it would have been a shootout and very few people would have been hurt by comparison to the number that were hurt.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But yesterday…
TRUMP: I’ll tell you who would have been hurt, the bad guys would…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But yes or no?
TRUMP: — because they were the only ones that had the guns.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Trump, yes or no, should someone on the terror watch list be allowed to buy a gun?
TRUMP: If somebody is on a watch list and an enemy of state and we know it’s an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely.
George Stephanopoulos exposed Donald Trump as having no actual policies. The Trump campaign is the combination of a series of talking points that can be heard daily on Fox News, and the feelings of the candidates. Notice that Trump expressed a strong feeling that “enemies of the state” should not have access to guns, but he proposed no policies that would keep guns away from potential foreign and domestic terrorists.
Trump can’t give a straight answer to questions because he doesn’t know anything, and when he is pressed to go beyond his feelings, the result is empty combative tough talk.
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.
Donald Trump is talking about returning to the failed policies of the Bush years. He talks like an outsider, but Trump is advocating the same and more extreme policies than the Bush administration used.
The Republican frontrunner is handing the 2016 election to Democrats on a silver platter. There is not a single state that President Obama won in 2012 that Donald Trump could flip in 2016. Trump would get fewer Republican votes in a general election than Romney or McCain because as the country is moving left, he is catering to the far right.
The best thing to happen to Democratic hopes of keeping the White House and retaking the House and Senate is that Donald Trump continues to lead in the Republican polls.
As Trump’s interview on ABC’s This Week demonstrated, the billionaire is know-nothing who is unfit for the White House.
Trump is telegenic empty shell of a candidate who is an expert at using the media and generate publicity.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
