Terrorism Expert: ISIS Is “Probably Cutting Videos” of Donald Trump’s Response to Belgium Attacks

Donald Trump wasted no time in backing torture (again) after this morning’s terrorist attacks in Brussels.

“Waterboarding would be fine” for Salah Abdeslam, one of the alleged participants in the massacre in Paris last November, Trump said on the Today Show. He’s previously said he’d like to do “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding to terrorism suspects, and on Tuesday he repeated his call to change the laws to allow further acts of torture: “If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people.”

But terrorism expert Malcolm Nance, the head of the Terrorism Asymmetrics Project and a veteran of Navy intelligence, took Trump to task for doing the propaganda work of ISIS.

“Good God, they’re probably cutting videos of this right now,” Nance said on MSNBC about Trump’s comments. “Donald Trump right now is validating the cartoonish view that they tell their operatives…that America is a racist nation, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and that that’s why you must carry out terrorist attacks against them…It’s irresponsible and it needs to stop.”

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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