Donald Trump argued Wednesday that his immigration policies could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks by keeping the hijackers from entering America in the first place.
{mosads}The GOP presidential nominee brought up the issue at a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., while rehashing a series of controversies that plagued his primary bid, specifically when he said Muslims were “dancing on the streets and the rooftops” in New Jersey celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center.
“By the way, those people who knocked down the World Trade Center, most likely under the Trump policy wouldn’t have been here to knock down the World Trade Center,” he said.
Trump has called for a ban on all immigration from countries with a history of terrorist activity, but hasn’t specifically laid out which countries would qualify. That policy amounted to a shift from his earlier call to temporarily ban all Muslim immigration.
Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia, while the others were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon.
It’s not the first time Trump has levied criticisms about the 9/11 attacks. During the GOP debates, he accused former President George W. Bush of failing to protect the country, noting that the “worst attack ever in this country” was on his watch.
Trump on Wednesday went on to defend his claims about the celebrations, noting a story by a journalist that mentioned reports at the time before later asserting he could not prove it. And he brushed aside accusations that he made fun of that reporter’s disability, arguing that he didn’t know the journalist who had interviewed him before.
“I didn’t know him, and if I did know him … people with disabilities, I spend millions of dollars and ramps and all sorts of things in buildings, in many cases things I don’t have to do,” Trump said, before attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for airing an ad accusing him of making fun of that reporter.
The American Disabilities Act requires buildings to follow certain standards to allow disabled people the ability to access buildings.