Donald Trump says USA should bring back TORTURE to waterboard evil Islamic

Donald Trump addressed reports that he supported a government database to track Muslims in the USA, an idea that had drawn sharp rebukes from his Republican presidential rivals and disbelief from legal experts.

The billionaire real estate mogul and former reality TV star is leading the race for the Republican nomination for the fourth straight month, with Republican establishment candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio 47% to 43%.

On Twitter, he notes a passage in a 2001 Washington Post article that makes reference to “tailgate-style parties” and people being detained because they were cheering. But Trump isn’t backing down on this or a few other claims, including retweeting false statistics about crime whose source appears to be a white supremacist group. When ABC pressed Trump on his statement, he stood his ground.

Ben Carson, who faced criticism this week for comparing Syrian refugees to “rabid dogs”, wouldn’t say whether he would reinstate the use of waterboarding.

“I would bring it back, yes”. When questioned further, the retired neurosurgeon said he was referring to news coverage that he saw during the attacks, ABC News reported on Monday.

“It did happen. I saw it”, said Trump.

“Absolutely”, Trump told NBC News in between campaign stops in Iowa. “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down”, he told a crowd at an Alabama rally on Saturday.

The Republican presidential candidate says such monitoring is needed as part of a terrorism-fighting strategy – even if there’s strong push-back to that idea. Are you unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?

“No, not at all”, Trump said.

Andrea Mitchell said, “Donald Trump saying that mosques should be under surveillance, that we should re-institute waterboarding, that Syrian refugees are suspect, that there should be a few database, he wouldn’t rule out a central database for Muslims”.

“I want a database for the refugees”, Trump said.

On Sunday, Trump said: “I don’t want to close mosques; I want to surveil mosques”.

“You know, they don’t use waterboarding over there; they use chopping off people’s heads”, Trump said in a TV interview. “I would hate to do it, but it’s something you’re going to have to strongly consider”, he said, adding: “You’re going to have to watch and study the mosques because a lot of talking is going on at the mosques”.

If elected, he would bring strong anti-terror interrogation techniques back which were removed by President Barack Obama when he came into office in 2009, he said.