President Trump has been consulting members of his Cabinet and senior intelligence officials to determine whether the U.S. should bring back torture and enhanced interrogation techniques.
Trump was expected to release an executive order on Wednesday that would have lifted the ban on overseas CIA prisons and revived enhanced interrogation methods that had been banned early on in his predecessor’s administration.
Defense Secretary James Mattis has been an outspoken opponent of torture, something Trump admitted he is taking into account.
“I will tell you, I have spoken to others in intelligence and they are big believers in, as an example, waterboarding,” Trump told ABC’s David Muir in an interview aired Wednesday evening. “They said it does work.”
The president had vowed to bring back “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” during a GOP primary debate Muir had moderated last February. Then, after meeting with Mattis in November, he appeared to be reconsidering.
But on Wednesday, the new commander in chief said he “would do waterboarding” if it allowed U.S. officials to gain intelligence that would further protect Americans.
“I want to keep our country safe,” he said. “When they’re chopping off the heads of people beacuse they happen to be Christian in the Middle East, would I feel strongly about waterboarding? We have to fight fire with fire.”
He continued, “With that being said, I’m going with Gen. Mattis. I’m going with my secretary because I think [CIA Director Mark Pompeo] is going to be phenomenal.”
“But I have spoken with people at the highest level of intelligence and I ask them the question, ‘Does it work? Does torture work?’ And the answer is, ‘Yes. Absolutely,'” Trump added.
