Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reacted early Tuesday morning to the terrorist attack in Brussels, by saying the city used to be “beautiful and safe,” but now is a “disaster city.”
After initially reacting on Twitter, Trump expanded on his reaction during an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” calling the Belgian capital an “armed camp” and likened the city to Paris for its open borders policies.
“It’s absolutely horrible,” Trump said. “I’ve been talking about this for a long time. Look at Brussels, it was a beautiful city, a beautiful place — zero crime. Now it’s a disaster city. It’s a total disaster. We have to be very careful in the United States. We have to be very, very vigilant as to who we let into this country.”
“Brussels is an armed camp,” Trump said. “You go down into Brussels today, it’s an armed camp. If you went down into Brussels 20 years ago, it was like a magical city. It was a magical city.”
Do you all remember how beautiful and safe a place Brussels was. Not anymore, it is from a different world! U.S. must be vigilant and smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2016
Coordinated explosions left dozens dead and more than 100 injured. Two explosions occurred at the city’s airport, followed by a third at the Maelbeek metro station.
The attack took place after last week’s arrest of Salah Abdeslam, the terrorist behind November’s Paris attacks. Abdeslam was captured Friday and questioned in his hospital bed after being shot.
Trump was warning back in January about the reach of Islamic extremism into Belgium, and called Brussels a “hell hole.”
“Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places,” he said, according to the New York Times. “There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation.”
