WASHINGTON- White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushed back Wednesday against criticism that President Donald Trump is “politicizing” the terrorist attack in New York City that claimed eight lives, saying the president is “talking about protecting American lives.”
Sanders also defended Trump’s statement earlier Wednesday that he would “certainly consider: sending Sayfullo Saipov, who allegedly drove the truck that hit the victims, to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. She said Saipov should be an “enemy combatant.”
If he were sent to Guantanamo, Saipov would be the first person who sent there for committing a crime on American soil.
“We have to come up with punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now,” Trump said to reporters during a Cabinet meeting. “What we have right now is a joke.”
He also announced that he is taking steps to dismantle the Diversity Visa Lottery, a program that allocates around 50,000 visas to countries where there is a low rate of immigration to the U.S.
“I am going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program,” he said.
Saipov received his visa through the program. Trump quickly pinned the program on Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer early Wednesday on Twitter.
“The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based,” he tweeted.
Schumer responded on the Senate floor. “President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be bringing us together and focusing on the real solution, antiterrorism funding,” he said.
While Schumer played a major part in shaping the visa program legislation in 1990, he also was a part of a group of senators that pushed for, and got, Senate approval in 2013 for a bill eliminating the program. The bill failed in the House.
“This wasn’t about going the political route,” Huckabee said of Trump’s tweet and statements. “This is something frankly the president has been talking about for a long time. This isn’t a new policy, position or conversation. The president has been talking about extreme vetting and the need for that for the purpose of protecting the citizens of this country long before he was a President.”