President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order to implement “new vetting measures” after the ceremonial swearing-in of Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis.
“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America,” he said after congratulating Mattis on his appointment. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people.”
On the campaign trail, Trump promised “extreme vetting” of people traveling to the United States from “terror-prone” countries, all of them majority-Muslim. But exactly what “new vetting measures” the order laid out were not immediately clear.
Before actually signing the order, Trump said, “this is the protection of the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States.”
“We all know what that means,” he added.
Trump also signed an executive order he said would “begin a great rebuilding of the armed services.”
The order would develop “a plan for new planes, new ships, new resources and new tools for our men and women in uniform,” Trump said.
