Donald Trump's anti-terrorism speech: a new, just as dumb ban and more

[UPDATES BELOW]

Donald Trump has released a rambling anti-terrorism speech [1]. A few points so far based on these parts:

We have an incompetent administration, and if I am not elected President, that will not change over the next four years -- but it must change, and it must change now...

I called for a ban after San Bernardino, and was met with great scorn and anger but now, many are saying I was right to do so -- and although the pause is temporary, we must find out what is going on. The ban will be lifted when we as a nation are in a position to properly and perfectly screen those people coming into our country.

The immigration laws of the United States give the President the power to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the President deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States, as he deems appropriate.

I will use this power to protect the American people. When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats.

  1. Trump is saying, "elect me or you're toast". If he put the USA first, he'd promise to keep fighting against Hillary's agenda even if he's not elected. Because he's a narcissist, he can't do that: if you don't elect him, you're on your own.
  2. Trump's ban was originally on Muslims. He's now magically transformed the ban into one on those from certain regions. It wouldn't have taken a smart advisor even a few seconds to see how Trump's new version of his ban would fail. The new ban would let in jihadists from France, while keeping out Christians from Lebanon for instance.
  3. There are certainly many who agree with Trump's original Muslims ban, many of whom are on the "alt-right". However, very few if any with power support Trump's Muslims ban. His "suggestion" is six months old and no national politician I know of will put their career on the line supporting it.
  4. We don't even need a temporary ban: we can just go straight to stringent background checks. A common talking point from Trump supporters is that many Syrian refugees can't be vetted. Under my plan of just going straight to stringent background checks, they wouldn't be allowed into the U.S.

6/25/16 3:11PM PST UPDATE: As of this moment, Trump has changed his ban yet again. If Trump were capable of thinking things through and had smart advisors who could think things through and think ahead, this wouldn't be an issue. The latest version of his ban might not exclude, for instance, Christians from Lebanon, but it has the other flaws discussed above. From [2]:

[Trump] spokeswoman Hope Hicks [said today] that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee only wants to ban Muslims from countries with heavy terrorism.

Hicks said in an email that her boss took this new position - which is a dramatic scaling back of the position he first took in early December - during a policy speech nearly two weeks ago. In that speech, Trump did not mention Muslims and called for a temporary ban on "certain people coming from certain horrible - where you have tremendous terrorism in the world, you know what those places are." At the time, it appeared that Trump was expanding his ban to include more people, not limiting its scope.

The issue came up Saturday as Trump gave reporters a tour of his golf course on Scotland's eastern coast. During one of four stops along the 18-hole course, a reporter asked Trump if he would be okay with a Muslim from Scotland coming into the United States and he said it "wouldn't bother me."

Afterward, Hicks said in an email that Trump's ban would now just apply to Muslims in terror states, but she would not confirm that the ban would not apply to non-Muslims from those countries or to Muslims living in peaceful countries.

Some politicians flip-flop, and in some cases they legitimately changed their minds. This isn't such a case: this just further illustrates the low level of intelligence of the Trump campaign. They're incapable of devising policies that would actually work to reduce terrorism.

6/26/16 UPDATE: Even more idiocy is at [3]:

Trump's national finance chairman, Steven Mnuchin, who accompanied Trump on his Scotland trip, also suggested Trump's policy had changed. "It is about terrorism and not about religion. It is about Muslims from countries that support terrorism," Mnuchin told reporters on Saturday.

Obviously, Mnuchin suffers from the same intellectual problems as Trump. It can't not be about religion and be about Muslims specifically at the same time.

More from [3]:

Instead, Trump emphasized that Muslims from states with heavy terrorist activity would be "very strongly" vetted and suggested that the U.S. would more closely scrutinize all individuals seeking to enter the country.
He also told the Daily Mail that individuals from "terror countries" would be "even more severely vetted" but could ultimately be allowed entry into the country.
"People coming from the terror states -- and you know who I'm talking about when I talk about the terror states - we are going to be so vigilant you wouldn't believe it and frankly a lot will be banned," Trump told CNN after touring his golf course here.
Trump also focused on the need to ban individuals from "terrorist countries" in an interview later Saturday with Bloomberg Politics.
"I want terrorists out. I want people that have bad thoughts out. I would limit specific terrorist countries and we know who those terrorist countries are," Trump said, again not specifying which countries would be included.

All Trump had to do from the start is demand that everyone be "severely vetted" without mentioning a religion, and he'd be more popular, he'd have avoided giving his opponents an easy way to discredit him, and he would have been able to undercut Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So, why didn't he just do that? Clearly, Trump can't think ahead and can't think things through.

6/28/16 UPDATE: From [4]:

Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson rejects the notion that Trump targeted all Muslims from the beginning, even though he did. And the new language was just a matter of "adding specifics to clarify his position," she said during a Monday appearance on CNN.

"There's been no change. Mr. Trump still wants to stop individuals from coming into their country who cannot be vetted," Pierson said.

That's like something out of 1984. For a reminder, this is what Trump posted on December 7, 2015:

(New York, NY) December 7th, 2015, -- Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on...

ABC also notes that the Trump campaign hasn't responded to their request for how Trump would determine which countries would be covered by his (latest) ban.

7/24/16 UPDATE: The long, strange trip for Trump to support a workable, pro-American policy continues. From [5]:

After he became the presumptive nominee, Trump made comments that seemed to indicate that he was willing to soften his position. In May, Trump said that the Muslim ban is "just a suggestion" and that he's open to other ideas. In June, after the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Trump called for a temporary ban on "certain people coming from certain horrible - where you have tremendous terrorism in the world, you know what those places are." At the time, it appeared that Trump was expanding his ban to include more people, not limiting its scope, but his staff would not confirm where their boss stood.

Later that month, during a visit to one of his golf courses in Scotland, a reporter asked Trump whether he would be okay with a Muslim from Scotland coming into the United States, and he said it "wouldn't bother me." Afterward, spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email that Trump's ban would apply only to Muslims in states with high risks of terrorism, but she would not confirm that the ban would not apply to non-Muslims from those countries or to Muslims living in peaceful countries.

More recently, several of his top allies have said that the nominee no longer wants a religion-based ban. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump's running mate, criticized Trump's original proposal but says he can support Trump's current position, which he described as temporarily suspending "immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States." Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also has pushed that characterization of the ban, while dodging questions on whether it would still target followers of Islam. Reince Priebus, the Republican Party chairman, said last weekend that Trump has moved away from his original proposal and that "there is no religious test on the table."

In the "Meet the Press" interview, which was conducted Saturday, Trump said his proposed ban is constitutional.

"Just remember this: Our Constitution is great, but it doesn't necessarily give us the right to commit suicide, okay?" he said. "Now, we have a religious, you know, everybody wants to be protected. And that's great. And that's the wonderful part of our Constitution. I view it differently. Why are we committing suicide? Why are we doing it? But you know what? I live with our Constitution. I love our Constitution. I cherish our Constitution. We're making it territorial. We have nations and we'll come out, I'm going to be coming out over the next few weeks with a number of the places."

Todd then pressed Trump on specific scenarios: France and Germany have been compromised by terrorism, so would he limit all immigration from these countries?

Trump repeatedly avoided answering the question, instead saying that it's the fault of these countries that they have been attacked by terrorists.

"You could get to the point where you're not allowing a lot of people to come into this country," Todd said.

"Maybe we get to that point," Trump responded. "Chuck, look at what's happening. Look at what just took place in Afghanistan, where they blow up a whole shopping center with people, they have no idea how many people were even killed. Happened today. So we have to be smart and we have to be vigilant and we have to be strong. We can't be the super people."

Todd again pushed Trump on how he would handle immigrants from France, Germany and Spain.

"Here is what I want: extreme vetting," Trump said. "Tough word - extreme vetting. We have to have tough, we're going to have tough standards. And if a person can't prove that they're from an area, and if a person can't prove what they have to be able to prove, they're not coming into this country. And I would stop the Syrian migration and a Syrian from coming into this country in two seconds."

Once again: if Trump had just called for "extreme vetting" from the beginning, he would have avoided all the problems singling out one religion has caused him. Trump could have forced Obama's hand, and as a result there'd be fewer potential terrorists in the U.S.

Instead, Trump has pushed different versions of bad, dumb ideas, oftentimes being contradicted by his proxies. As a result, Obama has been allowed to continue his agenda. Trump helped Obama.

The "look at what's happening" part is what those who can't figure things out and who are prone to making bad decisions say. Leaders are supposed to survey the situation and come up with smart, realistic plans. Trump isn't capable of doing that. Did he even think through his plan and realize it could include countries like France? If he had, wouldn't he have an answer?

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[1] facebook . com/DonaldTrump/posts/
10157163861635725:0

[2] washingtonpost . com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/25/
trump-now-says-muslim-ban-only-applies-to-those-from-terrorism-heavy-countries

[3] cnn . com/2016/06/25/politics/
donald-trump-muslim-ban-terrorism

[4] abcnews . go . com/Politics/
latest-tweak-donald-trumps-proposed-muslim-ban-raises/story?id=40185453

[5] washingtonpost . com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/24/
donald-trump-is-expanding-his-muslim-ban-not-rolling-it-back/