GOP presidential candidate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is blasting President Obama for calling ISIS a “JV” team, and explaining how, if elected President of the United States, he would combat ISIS.
“Its time that we realize that ISIS and radical Islam is real. They’re wanting to destroy western civilization…we’ve got a President that says we’ve contained them. It looks like to me that they’re not contained whatsoever,” Huckabee tells Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM with guest host Matthew Boyle. “I wish the President would put a new focus on protecting Americans rather than on protecting the reputation and image of Islam.”
Boyle asked Huckabee about being questioned about if America should be taking in any more Syrian refugees – to which Huckabee said no at the debate last week in Wisconsin, and if that at all has been related to the terrorist attacks in Paris.
“When you don’t have borders and the EU has prided itself on saying ‘We don’t have borders, we’re politically correct’….last night you see what happens when you don’t have control of your borders,” Huckabee explained, adding that Americans are fed up that the United States hasn’t been controlling its borders.
Huckabee said even the President of France last night shut down the borders, stressing that even a “left wing politically correct France decides that it can’t continue to just have an open-border society.”
He said it is time for people to wake up and realize that “there are unleashed dogs loose around the world,” referencing the terrorists. He added that they are “a threat to our very way of life.”
Huckabee said that it’s time to do more than issuing statements and mourning in the fight against ISIS and Islamic terrorism.
“It needs to start with closing our own borders to people who are connected to any country where there’s a strong presence of ISIS or Al Qaeda,” he said, adding Guantanamo Bay shouldn’t be closed, but rather should be used more.
Huckabee also said the United States should “build a coalition – take this fight directly to ISIS, which is no longer a JV team.”
He said part of the coalition could include NATO, Russia, and Middle Eastern countries – “any nation that doesn’t participate we sanction and isolate them.”
“We don’t know if we’re importing refugees or if we’re importing terrorists,” he added, referencing the earlier question about the danger of taking in Syrian refugees, as the Obama administration – and some establishment Republican presidential candidates – have said the U.S. should do.
“If we’re going to deal with true refugees from Syria – people that are under threat – then lets do it in a place that makes sense,” Huckabee explained, saying the U.S. could help relocate and build camps overseas near their home in places like Saudia Arabia, Dubai and Jordan.
Boyle asked Huckabee if he thought it would take a terrorist attack in America to get politicians to wake up and combat this issue.
Huckabee said that he hopes not and “maybe we could recognize that this is an attack on western civilization,” referencing what happened in Paris Friday night.
“They want absolutely zero tolerance when it comes to anything other than their world view, which would take us back to the 7th century,” Huckabee said of the Islamic terrorists.
He said he wants leaders to stop pretending this is a contained effort or a JV effort, referencing President Obama’s earlier statements about ISIS, saying they were a JV team and most recently that they have been contained.
“He’s clearly not up to it,” Huckabee said of Obama being able to handle this threat.
ISIS called the attacks in Paris last night the “first of the storm,” to which Huckabee responded what he thinks the U.S. should do to stop the storm from spreading.
Huckabee said if he were President of the United States that he would make sure ISIS didn’t have access to social media so that they can’t communicate or recruit people.
He also said it is time to “recognize we just can’t …drop a few explosive devises here and there” in order to win this war, adding that it will take a coalition.
“I think it’s time to recognize that right now we have a lot of differences with Russia… but Putin just saw one of his own airplanes blown up…right now, we’ve got far more to gain by recognizing that Putin wants to get rid of ISIS as much as we do,” Huckabee said, adding, “I don’t trust him” but “somebody who is willing to help us destroy ISIS…right now, they’re our friend.”
Huckabee said that the coalition of countries should “bomb the absolute stink out of them,” adding, “it’s going to have to be an aggressive air campaign followed up by a group of ground troops.”
“We either take this threat seriously or one day we’re going to regret that we didn’t,” Huckabee warned. “What we saw in Paris last night was not contained. What we saw in Paris last night was not the work of a JV team.”