Donald Trump backs Ben Carson over Oregon shooting remarks
Donald Trump defended Republican rival Ben Carson Wednesday, saying the retired neurosurgeon was unjustly criticized for his comments after last week's shooting in Oregon.
"I thought he was treated unfairly," Trump told reporters after a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa. "No I think Ben Carson was treated -- frankly, I think he was treated very unfairly."
Carson has drawn fire for his response to last Thursday's massacre at Umpqua Community College. On Tuesday, the GOP contender chuckled in an interview with ABC News that he "would ask everybody to attack the gunman because he can only shoot one of us at a time -- that way, we don't all wind up dead." When pressed on his remarks on Fox News, Carson repeated that "if everybody attacks that gunman, he's not going to be able to kill everybody. But if you sit there and let him shoot you one by one, you're all going to be dead."
Trump backed his fellow candidate's remarks on Twitter early Wednesday:
Ben Carson was speaking in general terms as to what he would do if confronted with a gunman, and was not criticizing the victims. Not fair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2015
At his rally, Trump also voiced his support for Russia's campaign in Syria, as Russia continues its airstrikes in Syria.
"They're gonna do some bombing of ISIS -- which, frankly, I think is a great thing. Let Russia bomb ISIS," Trump told the crowd at his campaign event.
But the Russians are mostly bombing rebels in the west who are fighting the Assad dictatorship. And a week after Russia first began launching air strikes claiming to target the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Russian officials said this week that warships have also joined the fray.
The U.S. says that Moscow, rather than attacking ISIS, is propping up the Syrian regime by attacking its opponents, including some groups linked to al Qaeda but also moderate rebels who are backed by the U.S.
Trump, for his part, believes the foreign involvement in the conflict is a positive development.
"They want to bomb 'em, let 'em bomb 'em," he said. "Bomb the hell out of them. Bomb 'em."
It's not the first time Trump has praised Russia's intervention in Syria.
He told Fox News last month that "Putin is now taking over what we started and he's going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that's a wonderful thing."
At his rally, Trump also addressed the increasing number of migrants that the United States would accept into the country, saying it would cost the economy "billions" to take in the "200,000" refugees.
"It's impossible for us to survive as a country if we keep being stupid," Trump said. "We're not going to have a country left."
In fact, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced last month that the U.S. would accept 85,000 refugees from around the world in 2016 (up from 70,000). That cap would rise to a total of 100,000 refugees in 2017.
Trump, voicing his suspicions of the migrants, said that the sheer number of them is "like an army."
"This could be one of the great Trojan horses," he said. "This could make the Trojan horse look like peanuts."
Trump warned that "we're going to bring them into our country, we know nothing about them. They're not documented, they can't give you papers. We know nothing."
He commented on what he thought of as a "strange migration" because "they're all men."
"I see all these young, strong men," Trump said, and alluded to "what's going on in Germany, where they're having tremendous problems with their women with these people."
The refugees "are going back," Trump promised, if he's elected president.
The billionaire businessman also quieted any rumors that he'd be dropping out of the 2016 race any time soon.
"I'm not going anywhere," the GOP hopeful said. "You better believe it."