Donald Trump Monday morning dismissed CIA Director John Brennan's refusal to allow waterboarding,
even if ordered by a future president, as "ridiculous," given the threat posed by the Islamic State and other terrorists.
"They chop off heads and they drown people in cages with 50 in a cage and big, steel heavy cages, drop them right into the water, drown people,"
Trump told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" show. "And we can't waterboard and we can't do anything, and you know, we're playing on different fields.
"Can you imagine these ISIS people sitting around eating, and talking about this country won't allow waterboarding and they just chopped off 50 heads?" Trump said later in the interview.
On Sunday, Brennan told NBC News that he would not carry out the techniques he's "heard bandied about" by Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Republican presidential front-runner Trump has said he would consider not only waterboarding, but other methods that are "a hell of a lot worse" on terrorism suspects. Cruz says he does not believe waterboarding is torture.
On Monday, Trump said the reason the United States is not able to beat ISIS is because "we won't use strong tactics, whether it's this or other things, so I think [Brennan's] comments are ridiculous."
Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who served in the Air Force in both Iraq and Afghanistan,
told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program that Trump's threats to do more than waterboarding are "silly," after show host Joe Scarborough called conversations about the little-used procedure the "stupidest conversation."
Story continues after video.
(MSNBC)
"The most effective interrogation — I experienced this in my training — the most effective interrogation is when you're scared but the guy comes in and puts his arm on you and goes 'I'm sorry you're going through this, it is what it is, let's get through this together. Just give me a couple things,'" said Kinzinger. "That's the most effective way to interrogate, but when you have like Donald Trump saying we're going to do a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding, it's silly."
Further, said Kinzinger, such comments do nothing for the nation's national security.
"I just got back from the Middle East and everybody is asking about comments like this," said Kinzinger, who has spoken out against a Trump presidency. "They're like, 'Is Donald Trump going to be president, because this is scary and he's going to ban everybody' and whatever. So our political conversation has a real impact on our national security."
Kinzinger said a month or so ago that he thought he would be "okay" with Trump, but after the front-runner's comments on scaling back NATO, and his comments on banning Muslims, he changed his mind.
"Look, the best allies in the war on terror need to be moderate Muslims, because if you have human intelligence you have moderate Muslims you recruit into that," said Kinzinger.
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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