Keene, New Hampshire — Back in New Hampshire for his first time since his comments about Muslims, Donald Trump was greeted by a few thousand cheering fans — and he was fired up.
Trump riffed about his new tax plan and spent a fair amount of time outlining the plan’s specifics. But in typical Trump fashion, he didn’t stop there.
On the topic of Syrian refugees, Trump was forceful in his stance: “I’m putting people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, they’re going back!”
He explained: “They could be ISIS … This could be one of the great tactical ploys of all time. A 200,000 man army maybe, or if you said 50,000 or 80,000 or 100,000, we got problems and that could be possible. I don’t know that it is, but it could be possible so they’re going back, they’re going back.”
The comments mark a departure from Trump’s previous and softer remarks about the refugee crisis. During an address in Rochester, N.H., two weeks earlier, Trump said of the crisis “we can do something, but we have to get other people to help us.”
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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who also held an event in New Hampshire Wednesday, said he disagreed with Trump’s refugee rhetoric. Speaking to MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt after a town hall event, Bush criticized Trump for saying he would send people back to “that hellhole.” During the event, Bush fielded an emotional question from a Syrian-American woman whose family members have fled Syria and are refugees currently in Turkey. Bush — and the other attendees at the event — applauded the woman for taking care of her family members.
“This is normally what we do unbelievably well we act on our heart, we organize it well, we take care of people,” Bush said, adding, “We’re duty-bound to provide support.” Bush didn’t specify how many refugees he believes should be allowed into the U.S., but he said supporting them is “appropriate in some scale.”
Trump further lived up to his unfiltered reputation at his event when he told the crowd that Bush and Marco Rubio’s friendship during this election cycle is “political bullsh—.” The gymnasium snapped to attention at the expletive, though it isn’t the first time Trump has used unexpected, colorful language. This is the same candidate who, in discussing Secretary of State John Kerry’s bike accident during the Iran negotiations, said that others at the negotiating table viewed Kerry as a “shmuck.” To attendees, like Dr. William Gravert of Winchester, N.H., this is Trump being Trump. “Donald Trump,” he told NBC News, “says what people are thinking, what the average person is thinking.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt contributed reporting. This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
Ali Vitali is MS NOW's senior congressional correspondent and the host of "Way Too Early." She is the author of "Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet." Recommended
