WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) – Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump says that, as president, he would push to change laws that prohibit waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods, arguing that banning them put the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage against Islamic State militants.
During the past week, in a series of interviews and events, Trump has articulated a loose, but expansive set of principles that, if enacted, would mark a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy from the limits put in place by Democratic President Barack Obama and the Republican-led Congress. In addition to arguing in favor of reinstating waterboarding, a technique that mimics the sensation of drowning, and “much more than that,” Trump has advocated the killing of suspected terrorists’ wives and children, which appears in violation of international law.
“We have to play the game the way they’re playing the game,” Trump said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, one day after he told an audience in Florida that he would fight to expand and broaden the laws that regulate interrogation.
“I would like to strengthen the laws,” he added Sunday, “so that we can better compete.”
Trump’s comments come as the U.S. continues its uphill battle against IS militants across the Middle East. Trump has repeatedly pointed to the tactics used by the group, including public beheadings and drownings in locked cages, as evidence that the U.S. needs to dramatically escalate the tactics it uses.