“Let me finish tonight with two numbers that don’t make sense,” Matthews said on his show before starkly contrasting the number of Syrian refugees — 4 million — and the number of Syrians recruited by the U.S. to fight the Islamic State — four.
Image source: MSNBC
Image source: MSNBC
“Is there just one in a million Syrians willing to fight for Syria? Is that the deal? Is it?” Matthews asked. “Would just one in a million Americans be willing to fight for our country?”
Matthews continued his pondering over the two numbers by implying that the Islamic State could be taking Syria “from people who would rather leave for the West.”
“Some said here last night that we can’t ask Syrians to fight for their country because they have families,” Matthews said. “Well, tell that to the American families, those we care most about, who have a member of their family on their fourth-deployment right now.”
“Is it too much to ask that the Syrians lead the fight to retake Syria?” Matthew continued. “It is their country. Unless they’re willing to abandon it. And what do we think of people who do that? And besides, even if we, the United States and other European countries overthrew ISIS, we’d still have to turn Syria over to somebody. If we had Syrians playing the rightful part in the liberation of their country, they would be the ones taking it over.”
Watch Matthews’ comments below:
Matthews also grilled Delaware Gov. Jack Markell on the potential of terrorists exploiting the Syrian refugee crisis to gain entry into the United States.
“Would you personally feel responsible — as chief executive having advocated the admission of these Syrian refugees into Delaware — would you personally accept responsibility for their behavior?” he asked.