WASHINGTON: Donald Trump in his first televised sit-down interview as US president has said Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia aren’t among countries that will face a visa ban to enter the country.
Instead, US President Donald Trump has indicated that both Pakistan and Afghanistan will be among the countries whose citizens will have to go through an “extreme vetting” process before entering the United States.
ABC News correspondent asked the US president, “Let me ask you about some of the countries that won’t be on the list, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. Why are we going to allow people to come into this country…” To this, Trump answered, “You’re going to see — you’re going to see. We’re going to have extreme vetting in all cases. And I mean extreme. And we’re not letting people in if we think there’s even a little chance of some problem.”
In an interview to ABC News, Mr Trump also said he was going to sign an order placing a ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US on Wednesday but it was delayed, apparently because of a huge public backlash.
The interview, broadcast on Wednesday night, was his first to a television channel since he took oath as president on Jan 20 and covered a wide range of subjects, from Obamacare to immigration and war against terrorists.
Trump said his plan to limit the entry of people from several Muslim countries was necessary because the world is “a total mess”. He denied that it was a ban on Muslims. “No it’s not the Muslim ban, but it’s countries that have tremendous terror,” Trump said.
“And it’s countries that people are going to come in and cause us tremendous problems. Our country has enough problems without allowing people to come in, who in many cases or in some cases, are looking to do tremendous destruction.”
Trump refused to be pinned down on which countries he was talking about, but did say that he believed that Europe “made a tremendous mistake by allowing these millions of people to go into Germany and various other countries, and all you have to do is take a look, it’s a disaster what’s happening over there.”
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