Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy has been under fire this week, following controversial comments he made on CNN where he said white terrorism is “different” from Muslim terrorism.
Speaking to The Jerry Bader Show on affiliate WTAQ, Duffy worked to clarify that the policies around both are different from a government perspective, while he also defended the ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority nations.
“The difference that I was trying to point out is we don’t have extremists on the white supremacy side trying to infiltrate America through a refugee program, and if we did, we would all try to stop them from getting into America,” the Republican from the state’s 7th Congressional District said.
“I think the roll-out of the pause was ham-handed, was clumsy. It could have been done way better, it could have been more clear. But, I don’t think anyone who reviews the authority of the President would argue against the point that he has the right and the authority to defend the homeland,” said Duffy.
Duffy said there are good people coming from those countries, but President Trump ordered a pause to figure out the best way to sort the good from the bad. “There’s also good people there who need a break, and we don’t know how to distinguish the good people from the bad people. That’s why Donald Trump said, ‘We need a pause to look into this program and make sure that it’s working, because my first responsibility is keeping America safe.”
Duffy has also been criticized for saying during the CNN interview that some “good things” came out of a church shooting in Charleston, SC, where a white man shot and killed several people at a black church. The Congressman called that attack “sickening and horrible” on Bader’s show, and said the point he was trying to make was that the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol a positive from the event. “That was a unity point for a lot of people that came through this horror,” he said.