The oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens said on Wednesday he supports Donald Trump’s campaign for president and agreed with his his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Pickens, who is the chief executive officer of BP Capital, said at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday that he agrees with Trump that Muslims should be banned from entering the United States while they are vetted.
“Cut them off so we can figure out who they are coming in,” Pickens told reporters at the SkyBridge Alternatives Conference, Bloomberg reports. “We’ve got plenty of people here. We’ve got a good economy and Muslims coming into the U.S. I don’t see that impacting the economy at all.”
Legal scholars have debated whether such an unprecedented rule would be constitutional. Pickens, who made his money in the oil industry, is also an adamant opponent of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.
“If I don’t get Donald Trump, with change, I’m going to get Hillary Clinton,” Pickens said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “Now tell me, who are you going to vote for? There is no way you can vote for her.”
Pickens, who was on the cover of TIME in 1985 and was a TIME 100 honoree in 2009, supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s run for president. On Wednesday he said Trump has done well in business—though he has had multiple bankruptcies—and that should be an indication for his economic policy. “So you judge a trapper by his pelt,” Pickens said.
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