STUART VARNEY (GUEST HOST): Why can't we put a temporary ban in place whilst we figure out exactly who it is that's coming to this country? Now, it's not because that whether the Orlando shooter was -- came to this country or not. It's a question of we ought to know precisely who is coming to this country. And in the case of the Syrian refugees who are coming in now, we don't know everything about them. I mean, is it too much to ask --
AMER ZAHR: Well, that's not true.
VARNEY: We're being attacked here. 49 dead in Orlando alone. Is it too much to ask that we just hold on a minute and figure out who is coming in and who we want in?
ZAHR: Stuart, when you make those kinds of decisions you're assuming number one that people that are Muslim are more prone to criminalism than otherwise. Second of all, there is about an 18 to 24-month vetting process before refugees make it in here already, that's the way it works. When Donald Trump says they're just flowing in, that's a lie. Right now so far, there's been less than 4,000 refugees from Syria that have even made it in.
But the problem is, we are now operating in a discourse in which we are accepting the idea -- look, if you accept the idea that Islam is at war with Christianity and the west, then guess what? ISIS agrees with you. And if you accept that ISIS is somehow some sort of accurate representation of Islam, or within any acceptable bounds of Islam, well guess what? The vast majority of the Muslim world doesn't agree with you, and ISIS agrees with you. So, we cannot operate in this discourse anymore. It's racist, and it's disgusting.
VARNEY: We cannot continue with this current level of political correctness. We cannot be so politically correct --
ZAHR: Hold on a sec, It's not about political correctness.
VARNEY: We cannot be so sensitive to Muslims that we allow terrorists to operate.
[...]
VARNEY: Now, the president today implied, suggested obliquely that Donald Trump and his views were partly responsible for the recent terror attack. Do you agree with that?
ZAHR: No, I wouldn't agree with that, but I would agree that he could be responsible or partly responsible for any backlash that happens against our community. There have already been three people in America at least. who have either vandalized or threatened to bomb mosques, who have said either that they're Trump supporters or that they would be happy to do that because Trump might pardon them one day. That's the kind of atmosphere he's creating. It's racist, it is xenophobic, and it's going to lead to somebody getting really hurt.
