GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump says the United States has “absolutely no choice” but to close down mosques where “some bad things are happening.”
“Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it,” Trump said on Fox News’s “Hannity” on Tuesday. “A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice.”
{mosads}Trump said on Monday he would “strongly consider” closing mosques if elected in response to the terrorist attacks in France last Friday that killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds more.
Pressed to explain his tougher stance on the issue, the GOP primary front-runner told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that the security situation was changing “a lot faster than anybody understands.”
“There’s absolutely no choice,” Trump insisted. “Some really bad things are happening and they’re happening fast. Certainly a lot faster than our president understands because he doesn’t understand anything.”
Trump also highlighted his concerns with accepting Syrian refugees, saying he has “a feeling that a lot of bad things will happen.”
“But yet we take everybody,” he said. “We don’t know where they come from, we don’t know what their crime record is. It could be wonderful. It could be a disaster.”
The businessman said if he wins the presidency, “they’re going out.”
“We can’t take a chance. You know, if you take thousands of people, and again I hear it’s going to be many more than what you’re talking about right now. But if you take thousands of people, Sean, all you need is a couple. You know, you don’t need 25, you don’t need 100,” he said. “Look at all the damage done in Paris with just a few people.”
The White House has pledged to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year. But those plans are the center of a heated debate after reports suggesting that at least one of the Paris attackers entered the country by posing as a Syrian refugee.
Thirty-one governors say they will refuse to resettle refugees in their states. The House is also expected to vote this week on a bill that would halt the Syrian refugee program and require tougher vetting measures.