It's not clear yet whether Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the suspect in Tuesday's deadly terrorism attack in New York City that claimed eight lives, had extremist leanings when he came to the United States, so it's not clear if President Donald Trump's call for extreme vetting would have made any difference, Rep. Jerry Nadler said Wednesday.
"We will learn a lot more," the New York Democrat, who represents New York's 10th District, including Manhattan, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"Much of what we say now is speculated. It's not at all clear that this person had extremist leanings when he came here. He came here seven years ago."
According to reports, Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan, came into the country in 2010, and had been reading radical Islamic posts on social media. Tuesday, Saipov was shot after driving a rented truck onto a bike trail in Manhattan, killing a total of eight people. He left a note in the truck claiming that he carried out the attack for the Islamic State.
According to his records, Saipov was a commercial truck driver who had formed a pair of businesses in Ohio. He also had driven for Uber, which conducts background checks on its drivers.
"He may well have been perfectly fine not to radicalize," said Nadler, so there would have been "nothing to see with extreme vetting or any other vetting. He lives here for a number of years and he changes from social media."
Nadler noted that there have been many other instances of people who are native Americans who ended up committing acts of terrorism, including in the Fort Hood shootings.
"No amount of extreme vetting is going to stop that," said Nadler. "The president, as usual, went off half-cocked without knowing all the facts. Uzbekistan was not one of the countries he talked about in extreme vetting."
Refugees who want to come to the United States do go through an extreme vetting process, which takes two years, said Nadler, and he's not sure how that can be improved upon.
"The fact is that people coming here who could perceivably pose a danger are tourists," he added. "Our economy is dependent on it. People want the tourists, and 99.9 percent of them are wonderful people. You might come here as a tourist if you want to conduct a terrorist attack and there's less vetting than a refugee."
However, with people who are already in the United States and becoming radicalized, or "reading how-to manuals from ISIS online," vetting would not help, the lawmaker commented.
He also described Tribeca and lower Manhattan as locations that have not only bounced back after the 9/11 attacks 15 years ago, but are thriving as places where people now want to live and work.
"We have a large population in lower Manhattan, which used to be just a business district and would be deserted after five at night," said Nadler.
"Now you have a huge population of people living there. Office buildings have been turned into residences and new skyscrapers are being built, residences and office buildings. Tribeca is the most expensive place in New York City today, probably the most expensive in the country. They're both very vibrant neighborhoods."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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