Trump says he'd close the border if US attacked like Brussels; Clinton calls 'unrealistic'

NEW YORK, March 22 (UPI) -- Donald Trump said as president he would close the borders if the United States was attacked by terrorists as Brussels, Belgium, was Tuesday morning.

After a coordinated series of terrorist attacks in Belgium killed at least 34 people Tuesday, Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, told Fox and Friends in a telephone interview, "I would close up our borders until we figure out what's going on. He later modified his comment, telling CBS This Morning, "I didn't say shut it down. I said you have to be very careful. We have to be very, very strong and vigilant at the borders. We have to be tough."

Trump also talked of the capture last week in Brussels of Salah Abdeslam, suspected of helping plot the 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people, telling NBC News, "If it was up to me, and if we changed the laws or had the laws, waterboarding would be fine. If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people. I am in the camp where you have to get the information and you have to get it rapidly. Belgium is no longer Belgium. Belgium is a horror show right now."

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called Trump's idea to close the border impractical, telling NBC News, "It's unrealistic to say we're going to completely shut down our borders to everyone. That would stop commerce, for example, and that's not in anybody's interest."

Of waterboarding, she commented, "Our country's most experienced and bravest military leaders will tell you that torture is not effective. It does put our own soldiers and, increasingly, our civilians at risk. They don't need to resort to torture."

"We often had some difficulty with our European friends because they were reluctant to impose the kind of strict standards we were looking for," she said of her tenure as secretary of state. Their outlook, she said, changed with the Paris attacks.