Rick Santorum: Trump's Muslim Ban 'Not Workable'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Presidential candidate Rick Santorum rejected the idea proposed by Donald Trump that all Muslims be prohibited from entering the country.
Santorum, talking with Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said something has to be done to confront terrorism, but Trump's idea is not feasible.
"What Donald Trump has proposed is not a workable idea and not the right idea, but what Donald Trump is saying, that we have no way in which to properly screen people coming in to this country who are jihadist is absolutely true. The idea that we should do nothing about it, that we should do what the President suggested, let's keep bringing people in here from countries that we know harbor jihadists and ISIS sympathizers [is wrong]."
Santorum harshly criticized President Obama's speech addressing the terror threat and believes his administration is not doing everything necessary to prevent another attack.
"What Barack Obama is doing is outlandish national security policy. He is not going to keep America safe. This is very, very clear. What the President is doing by admitting people in here from countries that we know have a heavy presence of jihadists without any type of screening mechanism will be devastating to the security of our country. That much we know is true and no one is attacking the President for allowing this to occur. Three of the people of the four who have committed recent atrocities here in this country, terrorist acts, the Boston bombers and the San Bernardino couple, three of them were screened by our security folks, by our intelligence people."
Santorum also addressed speculation that President Clinton was responsible for spreading rumor that his wife had an abortion in the 1990's.
"I'm not going to let this speculation run rampant. You may recall, we went through a terrible situation and it was after the debate we had on partial birth abortion, and back in 1996, I took Bill Clinton on a veto of banning this late term abortion procedure, fought on the floor of the Senate, and we didn't win the vote. We lost by two votes of overriding his veto, but we won the public relations war. We made the arguments that were compelling and that were putting the President in a very bad light. I know from these tapes, and this is something that came out in the article, he had some very unkind things to say about me."