Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump demanded that the United States be “vigilant” following the attacks in Brussels Tuesday that left at least 31 people dead and more than 100 people injured, reiterating his plan to keep “certain people” from immigrating into the United States and saying officials should “do a lot more than waterboarding.”
“It is a city that used to be one of the finest, one of the most beautiful, and one of the safest cities in the world,” he said during an interview on NBC News. “Now it’s a catastrophic, very dangerous city where the police have very little control.”
Trump condemned the attacks and said he would “exclude the people coming in from Syria without absolutely perfect documentation.”
“Well I would exclude the people coming in from Syria that don’t have documentation, coming in from the migration line that interestingly have cell phones in many cases but you say’ how do they get the cell phones’ and ‘where do they get their bills paid?’ I would certainly exclude those people from coming in.”
Compared to his Republican rivals, Trump has taken the most extreme stand against terrorism and shortly after the attacks in San Bernardino suggested the United States should ban Muslims from entering the country.
READ MORE: How the deadly Brussels attacks unfolded at the airport and subway
Ted Cruz, Trump’s closest contender in the Republican race, posted a statement on Facebook condemning the attacks and said they were not “isolated incidents” but “the latest in a string of coordinated attacks by Radical Islamic terrorists.”
Republican nominee John Kasich wrote in a statement on Twitter that he was “sickened by the pictures of the carnage, by the injuries and by the loss of life.”
Salah Abdeslam – a suspect in the November Paris attacks – was arrested in Brussels last week and when asked about his interrogation by NCB News, Trump reiterated his support for torture saying investigators should “be able to do whatever they have to do” to get information about future attacks.
“But frankly, the waterboarding, if it was up to me, and if we change the laws or have the laws, waterboarding would be fine,” he said, noting that “we work within laws” and torture is currently illegal.
“If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people.”