On Tuesday, Yahoo News sat down with Donald Trump in his Midtown Manhattan offices for a wide-ranging discussion on ISIS, college campus activism, his opponents in the 2016 presidential campaign, and Latino culture, among other topics. Below, here are his answers to Yahoo News’ questions on some of the election’s most-discussed topics:
On the proper U.S. security response to the Paris attacks and subsequent threats from ISIS:
“We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule…And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago…We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”
On Fox News’ “Hannity,” Trump went a step further, saying the United States has “absolutely no choice” and must shut down mosques where “some bad things are happening.”
On Trump’s plan to deport all Syrian refugees if he becomes president:
“They’re going to be gone. They will go back. … I’ve said it before, in fact, and everyone hears what I say, including them, believe it or not…But if they’re here, they have to go back, because we cannot take a chance. You look at the migration, it’s young, strong men. We cannot take a chance that the people coming over here are going to be ISIS-affiliated.”
In other interviews, Trump proposed creating a “big, beautiful safe zone” in Syria, where refugees could wait out the conflict there.
On Bernie Sanders:
“He had a great opportunity to do some serious damage [during the first Democratic debate], and in order to be politically correct, and in order to be nice, and in order to get a good sound bite that lasted about 10 seconds with the applause — it wasn’t even a very big applause — he gave up the whole email scandal…He just lost the election right there. He just lost his election. No. He’s gone. He’s gone now…I think he’s a communist. I think he’s actually a communist with a socialistic bent.”
Responding to Yahoo News’ question about his favorite aspect of Latino culture:
“Well, I like — I love the culture. I think the people have tremendous spirit. There’s a great energy that they have, the opposite of Jeb. There’s a great energy that they have, a tremendous, it’s a tremendous strength and energy…You know, I have thousands of employees over the years, tens of thousands of employees, many have been Hispanic and they really are terrific to work with. And, frankly, I always look at it that I work with my employees as opposed to them working for me.”
In June, Trump characterized Mexican immigrants in a speech as “bringing drugs, bringing crime…they’re rapists.” Two months later, he told one of Univision’s best-known anchors, Jorge Ramos, to “go back to Univision” during a press conference.
On political correctness:
“It’s gotten out of control. It’s all gotten out of control. … First of all, you’re really tampering with freedom of speech when you do that. At the same time, it’s trying to be politically correct and that is so bad…I think it’s one of the reasons I’m leading by so much in the polls, because we don’t have time to be so politically correct in this country and we have much bigger problems, as you can see.”
On campus protests regarding racial incidents and the subsequent resignation of two administrators at the University of Missouri:
“I would have handled things differently. First of all, I would have made sure there was no discrimination or any of that — and I don’t think there was. But I happened to look at the list of demands, those demands were crazy…Many of those demands were absolutely — not all — but many of those were absolutely over the top. And to watch these two men grovel and resign like two babies — whoever paid them in the first place?”
