Donald Trump said Wednesday morning that it's important not only to take out ISIS militants, but "you have to take out their families" as well.
"One of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we're so ineffective is they're trying to, they're using them as shields," the GOP front-runner told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. He repeated the comments on other morning shows.
"It's a horrible thing. They're using them as shields. But we're fighting a very politically correct war."
But with the terrorists, said Trump, "you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself, but they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families."
The comments came while Trump was speaking about how if president, he would fight ISIS and "bomb the hell out of them."
"I would knock the hell out of ISIS," said Trump. "I would hit them. I would hit them . . . so hard, like they've never been hit before."
And when it comes to civilian casualties, Trump said he'd do his "best, absolute best," but as the families are being used as shields, they would have to be hit too.
Trump said his policy has always been the same when it comes to fighting ISIS, but pointed out the confusion when it comes to fighting the terrorists.
"We're fighting ISIS and [Syrian Leader Bashar al-] Assad is fighting ISIS," said Trump. "And Assad, let's assume he's a bad guy, because he is, but we're backing rebels to fight Assad. Again, ISIS is fighting Assad. You got to pick who you're fighting. I mean you can't fight everybody. We're going to be fighting everybody."
And with Turkey involved "and Turkey sort of likes ISIS more than they like [us]," he continued.
"Russia does not like ISIS, and people are starting to find out. I mean in all fairness, [they] lost an airplane, blown out of the air. So Russia is not a fan of ISIS. Russia is bombing the hell out of them, starting to bomb them. I say ISIS is our number one threat. We can't be fighting everybody at the same time. ISIS is our number one threat."
Meanwhile, Trump said, President Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to ISIS.
"Every time he sends troops over, even if it's a small number, like he's sending another small number, he announced 50, last week, he has a press conference to inform everybody he's sending troops and it's like they have a target on their back," said Trump.
"If you do your job, do your job. Don't talk about it...any good general, somebody that knows what he's doing they don't talk about where they're sending their troops, how they're sending their troops, these troops are meant to do this and not go into homes and take out people. You don't do that. You send the troops quietly."
This means the troops "have targets on their heads," and meanwhile, all Obama "is worried about is climate change. He thinks climate change is something that's going to go kill us. And it's not going to kill us at all. It's not going to kill us."
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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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