Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that, along with knocking "the hell out of" the Islamic State group, his administration would also kill the families of terrorists.
"I would knock the hell out of ISIS," Trump said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends," reported The Washington Times. "I would hit them ... so hard like they've never been hit before."
Trump said he would do his "absolute best" to avoid collateral damage when targeting the Islamic State group, but he added that terrorists' families must also be killed because extremists often claim that they don't care about their own lives.
"When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families," Trump said.
He also argued that one of the reasons the Islamic State group is so effective is because they are using civilians as human shields.
When asked about minimizing civilian casualties, Trump said: "I would do my best - absolute best. I mean, one of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we're so ineffective is they're using [civilians] as shields - it's a horrible thing. They're using them as shields. But we're fighting a very politically correct war."
Trump also criticized President Obama for saying that climate change poses a threat: "I say ISIS is our number one threat. We have a president who doesn't know what he is doing and all he's worried about is climate change, he thinks climate change is something that's going to go kill us."
He noted that the Obama administration is fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and at the same time against the Islamic State group, a common enemy, according to The Hill. "You've got to pick who you're fighting, you can't fight everybody," Trump said.
A national poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University shows that Trump has regained his commanding lead atop the Republican field, thanks in part to controversial comments about Muslims following the terrorist attacks in Paris last month. Trump led the pack with 27 percent, up from 24 percent last month. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio came in second with 17 percent, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson fell 7 points to third, with 16 percent.
