Shooting of Philadelphia Police Officer by Man Claiming Allegiance to ISIS

Interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (1/8/16) following the shooting of a police officer in Philadelphia by a man who said he shot the officer because of his allegiance to ISIS, congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said the crime underscores the need to “recognize the ideology that’s being used by groups like ISIS to recruit and to get people to conduct these attacks here at home.” Tulsi called on the U.S. government to shut down the media accounts and websites used by ISIS and other Islamist terrorists to recruit new members.

Asked by Blitzer whether she found frustrating the Obama administration’s use of phrases such as “violent extremism” rather than “Islamist extremism”, Tulsi responded, “Wolf, it’s not about what frustrates me, it’s about us as a country taking action to identify who our enemy is and the ideology that’s driving them. Unless we do that, we will not be able to defeat them, we will not come up with effective strategies to defeat them...”

Blizter responded, “Would the language, the rhetoric, the description, would it really make a difference practically?”

Tulsi said, “It would absolutely make a practical difference…you were talking earlier about refugees, immigrants, and others coming to this country. We’ve heard reports of how DHS and other law enforcement officials were not allowed to ask refugees about their religious affiliation which meant they couldn’t ask a question like, ‘Have you ever been involved with or associated with the Muslim brotherhood or other Islamic extremist organizations?’ If you can’t identify these affiliations and these ideologies that people are attached to and are abiding by, then how can you stop them from coming to our country and how can you identify them in order to defeat them?”

-TeamTulsi