Jeb Bush’s position on accepting Syrian refugees appears to have shifted within a matter of hours. Bush now agrees that a “pause” in accepting Syrian refugees is necessary to protect U.S. national security.
In an interview with Bloomberg published Tuesday, Bush disagreed with his fellow Republican candidates who urged banning the admittance of Syrian refugees into the United States. He did not explicitly rule out blocking refugees from entering the country, but instead said, “The answer to this though is not to ban people from coming.”
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Bush agreed that Syrian refugees must be blocked from entering the United States and denied that he had changed his mind.
“I think that there should be a pause. The Obama administration hasn’t sent a clear signal of what the vetting process is and governors have a legitimate concern about that,” Bush told Fox News. “I also think that there’s a humanitarian crisis. If you’re a Christian in the Middle East you’re being beheaded and but for us who? Who but the United States will provide support for the persecuted?”
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Bush will deliver a foreign policy speech in South Carolina at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, on Wednesday afternoon. Other GOP governors who have delivered speeches about national security at The Citadel and run for president during this election cycle include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Walker, Jindal and Perry have all quit the race for the White House.
Bush, who ranks fifth in the Washington Examiner‘s newest presidential power rankings, will use his speech to focus on how the U.S. should combat Islamic terrorism in a war against the Islamic State.
