Exclusive — Jeff Sessions: If Hillary Can’t Say ‘Islamic Extremism,’ She’s ‘Disqualified to Be President’

Sessions
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions says that if Hillary Clinton cannot say the words Islamic extremism, she ought to be disqualified from being President of the United States.

“President Obama will not say the words [Islamic extremism]. Neither will Hillary Clinton, who would like to be the commander-in-chief of the United States military forces. Frankly, somebody who cannot understand the clarity of this threat and the need for honest talk about it — the need to protect America — is disqualified to be president. They just simply don’t get it, and that’s not acceptable anymore,” Jeff Sessions said on Breitbart News Sunday.

Sessions explained that today’s media and political elites do not seem to understand the world we’re living in nor have they demonstrated a commitment to implementing immigration policies that prioritize the safety of American citizens.

Do we not understand the world we’re in? Don’t we know that it’s the duty of the government of the United States to protect the people of the United States? While we provide religious freedom and protect it vigorously for anybody in America, we’re not required to admit people from all over the world that may pose a threat to us. We need to be serious about that. We do not need to admit anybody to the United States on an immigrant status or visa status if we choose not to. So what we should do is use good common sense — our best judgment — and be firm and clear and put aside this political correctness and get on with the essential duty of government, which is to protect its citizens.

Sessions warned that “this slaughter we had in Orlando is just an exclamation point on the danger we face”:

We’ve discovered and finally got the Department of Justice to give us at least the information that they’ve convicted 570 people for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 — 580. Almost all of those 90 percent come from Islamic countries. We’re not having threats from our Japanese immigrants, we’re not having threats from the Netherlands. I mean, can’t we get serious about this?…

Hillary Clinton wants to increase five fold the number of refugees from Syria and the Middle East, which can’t be vetted the experts have told us. Their own officials have said they aren’t able to do good vetting over what president Obama is admitting, so this is just out of touch with reality.

Breitbart News Sunday host Stephen K. Bannon asked Sessions his thoughts about the “Party of Davos enclave out in Utah this weekend with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.” Bannon also asked about Ryan’s insistence that implementing an immigration policy that protects Americans by curbing Muslim migration contradicts American values and is “not who we are.”

In response, Sessions said, “I don’t understand what they’re talking about.” Contrary to Ryan’s suggestion, Sessions explained that there is no such thing as a universal right to migrate:

We’re not required to take anybody into America, or — according to statutory law — “any class of persons who may pose a threat to us.” I mean, how simple is this? What world are we living in? So I believe we need to take this far more seriously. The fastest-growing, percentage wise, of immigrants coming into America today are Islamic. They’re not doing as well as we’d hoped. They just are not… 90 percent of those who entered from 2009-2014 are on food stamps today from Islamic countries. I don’t know why that is, but it’s not a healthy thing… So I think it’s time to think this thing through, evaluate how things are going, and put first the interests of the people of the United States.

Sessions said that Washington Republicans, currently led by Paul Ryan, have not been responsive enough on this matter:

We need to put the pressure on Republican and Democrats, but you would think Republicans would understand this better and be more responsive than we have been… We are seeing an upsurge in extremism within the Muslim world. Expert witness after expert witness — I ask them all this question: Are we talking about decades of this? Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years? The answer is yes, yes, yes, yes. All of them. So the idea that we’re going to have one quick victory and this is going to be over is not correct. We’re facing a decade-long surge of extremism that has got to be resisted…

When asked whether he thinks the nation’s political, financial, and cultural elites have “the backbone and the belief in the underlying principles of the Judeo-Christian West to actually win this war,” Sessions said:

I’m losing great confidence that our elites… do not operate sufficiently in the real world. And it’s a dangerous thing and they are eroding regularly, it seems to me, classical American values that are so critical to our success. And so it’s a big problem. Ultimately, if we don’t have the leadership elites of a nation — any nation that does not have strength in those categories of people, the nation is going to be damaged by it. Now I’ll just say this: What can you do about it? We need to elect a president who understands it. That’s a deciding issue in this election. We need to make sure the presidential candidate who is elected understands the threat and is wiling to take action to protect the republic. That’s so basic, but we have an opportunity this time I think to make a difference.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW:

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