President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday called the attack on Christmas market in Berlin earlier this week “an attack on humanity.”
The President-elect, in his first public comments on the Berlin attack that left at least 12 people dead, emerged from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Wednesday before meeting with incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and said, “What’s going on is terrible.”
Trump said in a written statement Monday in the wake of the attack that “ISIS and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad.”
But asked Wednesday about the focus on an attack against Christians, Trump asked, “Who said that?” and proceeded to qualify it as “an attack on humanity.”
“It’s an attack on humanity. That’s what it is, it’s an attack on humanity and it’s got to be stopped,” Trump said before heading back inside.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly highlighted ISIS’s slaughter of Christians in the Middle East and famously called for a ban on Muslims from entering the US as a response to terrorism. He has since called for a ban on individuals from terrorist-prone countries and has called for “extreme vetting,” though he has not yet outlined the terms of such a ban.
Asked Wednesday if the Berlin attack caused him to re-evaluate his ban, Trump would only say, “You’ve known my plans all along and it’s, they’ve proven to be right, 100% correct. What’s happening is disgraceful.”
A Trump spokesman said earlier Wednesday that Trump would receive the President’s Daily Brief on Wednesday and the President-elect noted Wednesday afternoon that “We have intelligence here right now.”
Trump said he last spoke with President Barack Obama two days ago.