As the presidential candidates battled in the Western primaries Tuesday night, Bernie Sanders visited “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to share his thoughts on the Brussels terror attacks and Donald Trump’s extreme reaction to the tragedy.
“Bernie has ignited a lot of passion, primarily among young people. And the incredible thing is, he did it without posting even a single nude selfie,” Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue, before the Vermont senator came out onto the show.
While there was some casual late-night chatter, the main topic of conversation was the bombings in Brussels, which killed at least 34 people and wounded hundreds more Tuesday morning.
“At times when we — or our allies — are under attack, it seems that people gravitate more to the candidates who talk the toughest. In this case, Donald Trump, after the attacks in the Paris, his popularity shot up. Why do you think that is?” Kimmel asked.
“People get afraid, and for good reasons,” replied Sanders, who was the last of the five remaining presidential candidates to speak out after the massacre occurred.
“ISIS is a disgusting and barbaric organization, we have seen what they have done in Paris, what they have done in Brussels, and they’re afraid of an attack on the United States,” he said.
However, “we are not going to undermine the Constitution of the United States of America in order to affectively destroy ISIS,” he continued. “We can’t do it. Our goal in this issue is to destroy ISIS, in coalition with Muslim nations on the ground.
“I think we can do that, but we have much more to do,” he said, adding: “We have to protect our own nation with better intelligence sharing, making sure we stop young people from becoming terrorists through social media, et cetera.”
“But at the end of the day, we can’t let the Trumps of the world use these incidents to attack all of the Muslim people in the world,” he said, as the audience erupted into applause.
“He [Trump] implied that if someone is a Muslim, then they are a terrorist — that is an outrageous statement … that is not what this country is about and we don’t need a candidate for president hurling these insults.”
Earlier that morning, Trump warned that America has to be very careful “as to who we allow into this country,” telling “Fox & Friends” that Brussels has gone from a beautiful city to a “total disaster.”
“I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what is going on,” he said.
Tuesday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was filmed before the results of Democratic nominating contests in Arizona, Idaho and Utah were known. Trump and Hillary Clinton won Arizona for their respective parties.
Earlier in his monologue, Kimmel made a light-hearted jab: “Donald Trump was behind in the polls in Utah. Utah is not particularly friendly territory for Donald Trump because most of the voters there are sober,” he quipped.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” airs at 11:35 p.m. on ABC.