Ohio Sen. Rob Portman: 'This is a dangerous world'

Credit: Anthony Shoemaker

Credit: Anthony Shoemaker

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman made the rounds on cable TV today. He was on Fox News and CNBC.

He talked mostly about President Trump's trip to Europe, the bombing tragedy in England and the administration's budget proposals.

On the tragedy in Manchester, Portman said "this is a dangerous world."

"It's a three pronged approach. One is the military part we talked about and that is important to go after ISIS and that's happening now in Syria and also in Iraq. Second, we have to do more  in terms of ensuring the people who come to this country are not here to do us harm. There are a lot of foreign fighters who have gone into the fight, more from Europe than from the United States. But many of these European countries have a Visa waiver program with us where it's easier to come into our country because they are allies because we're generally not concerned about it. But we have to be more concerned now. About 5,000 of these foreign fighters can go back to European countries and then have relatively easy access to the United States. We do need to tighten up on the Visa waiver programs and ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect the country. 

 "Finally, homegrown terrorism.  Let's face it, that is probably the toughest of all. And there I think it's law enforcement, the FBI, even local law enforcement. But it's also having better relationships with the Muslim community in this country. That's what's been successful in finding some of these terrorist threats. In my own home state of Ohio, we had the first foreign fighter who was arrested on terrorist charges because the Muslim community worked with local police to identify the threat and to be able to stop somebody before he committed an atrocious crime. This is a dangerous world."

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