Trump on waterboarding: US should stop 'playing by the rules' in Isis battle

Donald Trump has reiterated his determination that the US should stop “playing by the rules” in its fight against Islamic State militants.

“We’re talking about waterboarding like it’s the worst thing in the world,” he said in an interview broadcast on Sunday, adding: “I think we have to increase the laws because the laws are not working.”

The Republican presidential frontrunner spoke to CBS in Florida on Saturday night, after he won the Kentucky caucus and Louisiana primary.

Trump leads the Republican presidential race from the Texas senator Ted Cruz, who won in Maine and Kansas on Saturday. Cruz has advocated bringing back waterboarding and carpet-bombing Isis targets in Syria and Iraq.

This week, a group of leading Republican figures on national security said they would not follow orders from a President Trump who followed policies he has advocated on the campaign trail, such as waterboarding and the targeting of the families of terror suspects, that contravened international law.

Trump subsequently rowed back on the issue, saying in a statement: “I will not order a military officer to disobey the law. It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans and I will meet those responsibilities.”

On the campaign trail in Kansas and Florida on Saturday, though, he changed his position again, saying he would “have those laws broadened”.

Speaking to CBS in the interview broadcast on Sunday, Trump said: “We cannot beat Isis. We should beat Isis very quickly. General Patton would have had Isis down in about three days. General Douglas MacArthur. We are playing by a different set of rules.”

He added: “[T]he Isis people chop off the heads, and they then go back to their homes and they talk. And they hear we’re talking about waterboarding like it’s the worst thing in the world, and they’ve just drowned 100 people and chopped off 50 heads. They must think we are a little bit on the weak side.

“We are playing by rules, but they have no rules.”

Trump was asked if “playing by rules” was what “separates us from the savages?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t think so … we have to beat the savages.”

He was asked: “By being savages?”

Trump said: “No, well. We have to play the game the way they’re playing the game. You’re not going to win if we’re soft and they have no rules. Now, I want to stay within the laws. I want to do all of that, but I think we have to increase the laws because the laws are not working.”