President Donald Trump spoke to senior U.S. commanders at MacDill Air Force Base this afternoon, during which he discussed the threat of terrorism and his recent travel ban.
Trump did not spend much time directly addressing the fact that his recent immigration executive order is facing significant legal challenges, but he did hint at it when he said that “we need strong programs” that ensure people who want to destroy the United States aren’t allowed in.
“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism and we will not allow it to take root in our country,” Trump said. “We’re not going to allow it. We’ve been seeing what’s been going on over the last few days. We need strong programs so that people that love us and want to love our country and will end up loving our country are allowed in, not people who want to destroy us and want to destroy our country.”
The president went on to say that terrorists are determined to attack the United States.
“We’re up against an enemy that celebrates death and totally worships destruction,” he said. “Radical Islamic terrorists are determined to strike our homeland, as they did on 9/11, as they did from Boston to Orlando to San Bernardino.”
Trump then invited the audience to look at what is happening across Europe, although suggesting that they can’t really look at what’s happening because it’s not being covered in the press.
“All over it’s happening,” he said. “It’s gotten to a point that it’s not even being reported, and in many, many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
Outside of the topic of terrorism, Trump told members of NATO that they must pay their fair share.
“We strongly support NATO,” he said. “We only ask that all of the members make their full and proper financial contributions to the NATO alliance, which many of them have not been doing. Many of them have not been even close, and they have to do that.”