People around the world are looking at the United States and its response to the deadly shootings in Orlando, and they do not understand why "we are where we are" when it comes to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump's speeches against Muslim immigration, Council on Foreign Affairs President Richard Haass said Tuesday.
"His speech casts issues of immigration, with large numbers of people coming in," Haass, a former diplomat, told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, explaining that the nation's problems are not necessarily caused by immigrants, but by the need for building ties to the nation's Muslim communities.
"We have three million immigrants; no way can we have three million FBI agents," Haass said. "We have got to have the individuals not get radicalized."
On Monday, Trump commented that "people cannot believe" that President Barack Obama can't mention the words "radical Islamic terrorism," and that "he doesn't get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable. We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, people can't believe it."
And later in the day, in an interview, Trump said he'd let "people figure that for themselves," about Obama's actions.
"Donald Trump said that the president of the United States and he know exactly what he's doing, [and] there's something else in his mind going on," show host Joe Scarborough, a frequent Trump critic, said Tuesday. "When he is pressed on these theories, and when pressed after The Washington Post and others said that he is suggesting that President Obama is complicit, he says 'they can figure it out.'"
And Scarborough said that after Trump's reaction to the shootings, which left 49 victims dead, along with gunman Omar Mateen, who was killed by police, it's time for Republicans backing Trump to "save your party, save our party."
"Why aren't more Republicans willing be to stand up and be counted?" he said. "This is a time of crisis not only for you and the conservative movement but for your country. Stand and be counted. This is getting worse by the day."
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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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