From repealing 'Diversity Visa' to calling for death penalty, everything Donald Trump said since Manhattan attacks

Donald Trump isn't very good at crisis management. Unfortunately for him, his short presidency has already seen several of these including the North Korea nuclear missile threat, the Las Vegas shooting, Hurricane Harvey, etc. His response to them have usually been of the knee-jerk variety, causing many to raise fresh doubts about his capabilities as president.

On Wednesday, after a man in a rented pickup truck mowed down pedestrians and cyclists in Manhattan, killing eight and injuring 11, Trump announced a slew of measures addressing the issue. They are as following:

Repeal of 'Diversity Visa' programme

Trump urged the swift repeal of an immigration programme that brought many, including the New York attack suspect Sayfullo Saipov, to the US. Saipov had migrated to the US from Uzbekistan in 2010 after winning a lottery enabling him to do so.

The programme, established by Congress and coordinated by the state department, has its roots in efforts to bring more Irish and Italian immigrants into the US. Citizens of countries that send relatively few immigrants to the US can enter a lottery that grants winners permanent US residency. Applicants must have at least a high school education or its equivalent, or relevant work experience.

But on Wednesday, Trump said he would ask Congress to "immediately" initiate efforts to kill the programme, and the Republican House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, who has long called for an end to Diversity Visas', said in a statement that they pose "a threat to the safety of our citizens".

The White House was forced to walk back some of his comments, stressing that he was not taking executive action but looking to Congress to change decades-old laws. "We're going to continue pushing for and advocating for getting rid of this programme," Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Extreme vetting

Trump also ordered tighter scrutiny checks for immigrants, even tougher than what currently exists as part of "extreme vetting".

But the White House offered no indication of what new steps the president might be planning. "We have to get much tougher, much smarter, and less politically correct," Trump said.

He also said the US justice system for dealing with such cases must be strengthened, declaring, "What we have right now is a joke and it's a laughing stock." Again, there was no elaboration from the White House.

The extreme vetting process, as it stands today, took off from an executive order titled 'Protection Of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States'. However, it did not stop with the initial ban (which was blocked by the courts) on travel of citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia.

Tourists from the UK and other countries visiting the US could also be forced to reveal mobile phone contacts, social media passwords and financial data under extreme vetting practices considered by the Trump administration, The Wall Street Journal reported. These tourists could also face questions over their ideology.

The measures might include visitors from the 38 countries — the UK, France, Australia and Japan, among them — which participate in a visa waiver programme, which requires adherence to strict American standards in data sharing, passport control and other factors, the report quoted an official as saying.