After an EgyptAir plane carrying 66 passengers disappeared en route from Paris to Cairo, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested Thursday night the U.S. create a test for airport workers to see if they “believe in Sharia.”
Asked by Fox News host Sandra Smith, standing in for Megyn Kelly, whether he’s confident in the country’s ability to vet airport workers, Gingrich replied, “No, no, no.”
“Well, I draw a distinction. I think overall the odds are pretty good, high 99 percent, that you can stop people who are stupid from bringing in weapons through TSA,” the former GOP presidential candidate continued.
“But the idea that – we don’t even have the right standards. You know, the first test – and this is very hard to do – the first test ought to be, are we dealing with people who believe in Sharia and who want to impose Islamic supremacism?” Gingrich said. “We don’t have any tests for that.”
He went on to say the Obama administration would say “that was an Islamophobic comment and therefore was totally inappropriate.”
There has been speculation that an airline worker in Paris was involved in placing a bomb on the plane. But officials have not confirmed the cause of the crash and the search for wreckage is still underway.
