Donald Trump wants to waterboard. He wants to "go after" the families of terrorists. He wants, in other words, to make the United States a little more like terrorists because by his reasoning, if the country isn't on "somewhat of an equal footing," officials will "never, ever knock out ISIS."
"We have a law that doesn't allow right now waterboarding," the GOP presidential front-runner said during Thursday's CNN debate in Miami. "They [ISIS] have no laws, they have no rules, they have no regulations. They chop off heads, they drown 40, 50, 60 people at a time in big steel cages, pull them up an hour later, everyone dead -- and we're working on a different set of parameters."
Trump didn't specify whether he wants U.S. officials to be able to practice the cage tactic. He acknowledged that America must follow laws and treaties governing torture, but he thinks they're too strict and should be loosened to allow more extreme techniques.
"We have to expand those laws because we have to be able to fight on at least somewhat of an equal footing or we will never, ever knock out ISIS and all of the others that are so bad," he said. "We better expand our laws or we're being a bunch of suckers and they are laughing at us. They are laughing at us. Believe me."
Unless ISIS lets up, the only way to get on an "equal footing" is to bring the United States down to their level.
In December, Trump said, "We're fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families."
He recently clarified that he doesn't actually want to necessarily kill terrorists' families, but he does want to pursue them.
"I didn't say kill," Trump said in a recent CNN interview. "We have to go after them."
Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
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