A Donald Trump-Mike Pence administration will "support military action to crush ISIS," the Indiana Gov. said Friday after the presumptive Republican presidential nominee announced him as his running mate.
"We've got to exercise the full strength of the United States of America,"
Pence told Sean Hannity on Fox News. "Diplomatically and militarily.
"This is a military enemy," he said of the Islamic State. "What happened in Orlando, what just happened in Nice — these are terrorist attacks that are inspired by a military organization.
"We have to recognize that we are in a struggle."
In his first major interview since Trump's announcement on Twitter — ending weeks of speculation on who would get the No. 2 slot — Pence said that "we have to recognize and speak plainly about the impact and the influence of radical Islam.
"But let's focus on the enemy. The enemy is ISIS. We know where they are.
"It's a metastasized version of Islam that is radical Islam that's being used as a justification for simply a power grab in the region," the governor said. "That's what this caliphate is."
Pence also told Hannity that he agreed with Trump's call for a temporary ban on Syrian refugees and for building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to stop illegal immigration — and that Mexico is "absolutely" going to pay for the wall.
"We just need to be smarter and think harder about individuals who may be coming here, not just rejecting our political ideals but with the intent to do harm," he said. "As Donald Trump said: 'We've just got to find out what's going on — and we've got to approach this differently and boldly.
"That's quite a contrast from Hillary Clinton, who wants a 550 percent increase in the Syrian refugee program alone."
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