MSNBC national security analyst, former FBI special agent Clint Watts said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that if international terrorists had the similar rhetoric to former President Donald Trump, “we would be talking about a drone strike overseas.”
Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “There are not two sides to be taken on the question of incitement. Clint Watts, I would like you to speak about fighting terrorism just in general, and as an art and a science. I don’t know of any examples where they simply go to the crime scene and deal with the person who was radicalized to carry out violence. It always starts at the other end of the fish’s head and goes to the incitement, the idea makers, the people sending out the messages. How do you deal with a domestic terror threat without dealing with those inciting it and spreading it?”
Watts said, “Nicolle, you can’t. You’ll always be on your heels, always be reactive. We had a period after 9/11 where we were trying to get left of a boom as they would say as they would say in counter-terrorism. Which is can you get way up the stream of attack and root out the confluences that bring about that attack?”
He continued, “If you took what President Trump said and instead put it in Anwar al-Awlaki’s mouth, we would be talking about a drone strike overseas. That’s one aspect with our political leaders talking about this rhetoric.”
He added, “There are several other reasons. Domestic terrorists have open access to weapons in ways that international terrorists did not. Never did we have many ISIS supporters who have acquired handguns, long guns, explosives, explosive primers, if you look at that Michigan militia plot, they were talking about diversionary devices.”
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