Trump: I'm leading because politicians are 'incompetent'
While outlining counter-terrorism plans that could include a database on U.S. Muslims, Donald Trump said Sunday he continues to top Republican polls because people believe their current leaders are "incompetent."
Little more than a week after the Paris attacks, Trump said he would support a watchlist and a database of Muslims in the United States who could be terrorism suspects, surveillance of certain mosques, and renewed use of waterboarding during interrogations of detainees.
"Everyone else is coming out with polls saying I'm leading because people are sick and tired of stupid and incompetent people leading our nation," Trump said on ABC's This Week. "We have incompetent people."
Republican opponents and other critics have assailed Trump over a proposed database on Muslims in the United States, an idea on which he has given equivocal answers.
Asked on ABC "are you unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?" Trump responded: "No, not at all. I want a database for the refugees that -- if they come into the country."
As for mosques, Trump said he doesn't want to close them: "I want to surveil mosques. I want mosques surveiled."
Waterboarding -- now banned because U.S. officials consider it torture -- would be justified because "we have to be strong," Trump said. "You know, they don’t use waterboarding over there; they use chopping off people’s heads."
Trump's critics say he is offering unrealistic programs based on incomplete information, some of which would violate civil rights.
"On the job training for president does not work," says a television ad supporting Ohio Gov. John Kasich. "Benghazi, beheadings, Paris. Our lives depend on a commander-in-chief with experience, who understands the world."
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, also appearing on ABC's This Week, basically declined to comment on Trump's proposals, saying "I'm not one who is real big on telling the enemy what we're going to do and what we're not going to do" to fight them.
"I agree that there's no such thing as political correctness when you're fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you and everything that you have anything to do with," said Carson, who is second to Trump in many GOP polls.
A new ABC News national poll gives Trump 32%, followed by Carson at 22%, Marco Rubio at 11%, Ted Cruz at 8%, and Jeb Bush at 6%.
During his interview, Trump repeated the disputed claim that some Muslims cheered after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down," Trump said. "Not good."
"While there were images of people cheering the towers’ collapse in parts of the Middle East, there is no record of such celebrations in New Jersey. There were some Internet rumors of Muslims celebrating the towers’ fall in Paterson, New Jersey, but those rumors were discounted by local police at the time."