Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Friday acknowledged a key flaw in his call to “test” all Muslims in the United States and deport those who believe in Sharia law, admitting it’d be “impossible” to deport Muslims who are U.S. citizens.
In a Facebook live broadcast, Gingrich touched on the backlash his initial comments received and said that the news media took them out of context.
“A great deal of the coverage of what I said on Fox last night has been distorted,” Gingrich said. “The news media went into a hysteria overnight trying to over-exaggerate what I was saying. This is not about targeting a religion.”
“This is about looking for certain characteristics that painfully, we have learned time after time, involve killing people,” he elaborated.
But he seemed to take a different tack while discussing how to deal with a pattern of terrorist activity from American citizens, saying that it would be “impossible” to deport them.
“With an American citizen, deportation is impossible,” he said. “It’s not appropriate under the Constitution and there, historically we’ve always said, if you fought against the United States, that the correct answer were basically jail as opposed to deportation. I think we have to talk through what should be the right way of handling people who are here, but are not citizens.”
Gingrich doubled-down on the narrative that America is at war with the Islamic State terror group and argued that in times of war, certain rights must be compromised.
“I believe that if we’re in war we have the obligation to have the state act in such a way that it protects us from being killed,” he continued. “So we need to set up a set of rules that relate to what Americans can and can’t do in a time of war.”
The former House speaker went on to urge the FBI to more closely monitor suspected terrorists, returning to policies it adapted after the 9/11 attacks.
He concluded with a call for Congress to draft new laws addressing terrorism and surveillance and charged that terrorists want to wield the freedom of religion enshrined in the U.S. Constitution against Americans.
“We have to have the courage to have an honest discussion, and some of it is going to be touchy,” he said. “But I think the discussion is very, very important.”
Gingrich began to broadcast on Facebook about an hour after Donald Trump announced he’d picked Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) as his running mate, a position that Gingrich was also considered for. Gingrich didn’t react to that announcement, but did say he hoped to have a president dedicated to defeating the Islamic State.
Watch the full broadcast below:
It was a good try, Newt – You tried to sound Trumptastic, but it wasn’t enough, was it? Back to obscurity and FOX punditry with ya!
Gingrich: "What I said and advocated I did not say or advocate!"
"“A great deal of the coverage of what I said on Fox last night has been distorted,” Really ?
"A Muslim author on Friday morning tore apart Newt Gingrich’s new plan
to make all Muslims undergo a “sharia” test to prove their loyalty to
the United States — and she did it in a very unlikely place.
Being interviewed on Fox & Friends, author and physician
Dr. Qanta Ahmed blasted Gingrich’s proposal to “test every person here
who is of a Muslim background” — and then deport any Muslims who admit
to supporting sharia law.
“It’s very discouraging when you’re a Muslim here in the United
States, as am I, as are about three and a half million other people,
every time this happens, all Muslims are dehumanized,” she said. “How
are you going to test me? How are you going to test me? If you say —
Gingrich does not even understand sharia, though he’s not alone in his
ignorance. The whole narrative in the 18 months we’ve been talking does
not understand what sharia means. Which means I live a God-centered
life.”
Shorter Newt: I’ve embarrassed myself in the VP process enough so I’m gonna stick to saying crazy crap within the normal bounds of RWNJ’s and not stretch it further.
Typical conservative knee jerk reaction. Say something that sounds tough but totally unrealistic then walk it back when people call it out for being stupid and delusional.
They want bumper stickers not solutions.