GOP front-runner Donald Trump says journalists bear part of the responsibility for glamorizing terrorist leaders when they refer to them as "masterminds."
In an interview aired Sunday on
"Face the Nation," Trump told host John Dickerson that when the media refers to the man who was in charge of the Paris attacks as a "mastermind" it makes other potential jihadists want to be like him.
"I call them the guy with the dirty hat, the guy with the dirty filthy hat," Trump said. "These kids are watching the mastermind. I want to be a mastermind. The press is really hurting it."
The killers of 130 in Paris are "animals," not "masterminds," Trump said.
"They're not even smart people, I bet very low IQs," he said. "They're not smart people. And the press is making them into something – making them into Robin Hood."
As for fighting "radical Islam," Trump reiterated the Republican position that President Barack Obama is contributing to the problem by refusing to use the term.
"Until he admits this is a problem we're never going to solve the problem," Trump said. "He's only going to be there fortunately a little more than a year because the problem will get solved when he gets the hell out."
Dickerson asked whether Trump is concerned his rhetoric of going after family members of terrorists might actually create more terrorists.
"What's too far?" Trump asked. "They're killing people. What we just saw in California or in Paris. They're killing innocent people."
Armed citizens could stop the violence much faster, he said, noting that both Paris and California have strict gun laws.
"I can tell you one thing: If I'm in there I had a gun, we're going to knock them out, one way or the other," he said. "In Paris they had no guns. In California they had no guns. Only the bad guys had the guns. They were like sitting ducks, every one of them."
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