‘What she’s done in Germany is insane’: Donald Trump takes aim at Chancellor Angela Merkel over response to refugee crisis
Republican front runner also weighs in on gun control debate, explaining he ‘feels much better being armed’
Republican US presidential front runner Donald Trump branded Angela Merkel's welcoming of migrants to Germany “insane” and said the policy will only spark riots in the country.
“What's happening in Germany, I always thought Merkel was, like, this great leader,” Trump said in comments aired Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. “What she's done in Germany is insane. It's insane.”
Trump said that Europe was “going to have to handle” the migration crisis, but warned: “They're going to have riots in Germany.”
Germany is expected to receive between 800,000 and one million asylum seekers this year, and Chancellor Merkel has insisted that her country can manage the large numbers, part of a surge of migrants to Europe.
Trump reiterated his position that the United States should not take in the refugees, repeating previous comments that he believes the migrants look to be mostly “strong men” who look like “primetime soldiers” from the jihadist cause.
“This could be the greatest Trojan horse,” he added, echoing what has become a talking point for him over the past week. “This could make the Trojan horse look like peanuts if these people turned out to be [Islamic State group fighters].”
I always thought Merkel was, like, this great leader. What she's done in Germany is insane. It's insane
Instead, Trump backed the idea of a no-fly safe zone in northern Syria where refugees could take shelter from the country's bloody civil conflict. The idea has long been backed by Turkey, currently hosting more than 1.8 million Syrian refugees, and has been discussed by US State Department officials, but Washington has not yet taken a public position.
In Trump's version of the safe zone, the Gulf countries would club together to “take a big swath of land in Syria, and they should do a safe zone for people”.
“And then ultimately, [people would] go back to their country, go back to where they came from,” he said.
Trump also weighed in on the issue of gun control, saying he sometimes carries a gun to protect himself. The revelation is likely to spark a backlash from advocates calling for tighter control of guns, after three separate shootings at US universities or colleges this month left 11 people dead.
Asked why years ago he obtained a concealed weapons permit, Trump said: “Because I like to have myself protected.”
Host John Dickerson then asked Trump: “Do you carry?”
“Sometimes,” replied Trump, whose popularity has surged on the back of a series of bombastic comments on a range of sensitive topics, including immigration and gun control.
Last week, days after a gunman shot dead nine people at a college in Oregon on October 1, Trump said that gun laws had “nothing to do” with the spate of shootings and that such incidents were simply a fact of life. The mass shooting at the community college in Roseburg was “horrible,” Trump said.
“Had somebody in that room had a gun, the result would’ve been better,” he said, adding that “I feel much better being armed.”
