Clinton assails Trump's 'anti-Muslim rhetoric' after Orlando attack
Hillary Clinton obliquely criticized her rival Donald Trump’s worldview in a speech Monday afternoon addressing the recent terrorist attack in Orlando.
The former secretary of state said divisive rhetoric targeting Muslims makes law enforcement’s job harder and alienates contacts in the Muslim-American community who can play a critical role in preventing future attacks.
“Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric threatening to ban the families and friends of Muslim-Americans… hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terrorism,” she said in the address in Cleveland.
Clinton said hate crimes against Muslims and mosques tripled after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., at the end of last year.
“That’s wrong, and it’s also dangerous. It plays right into the terrorists’ hands,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said.
Clinton recast her speech to focus on terrorism after last weekend’s attack against a gay-themed nightclub in Orlando. She told the crowd “Today is not a day for politics,” and emphasized her own planned response to ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, her belief that assault weapons like the AR-15 the attacker used “have no place on our streets” and her plan to stop lone-wolf attacks if she’s elected president.
But without naming her Republican opponent, Clinton nevertheless rebuked Trump’s response to the attack thus far. Trump reiterated his call for a temporary ban on Muslim travel to the United States and criticized Clinton and President Obama for not referring to the shooting as an act of “radical Islamic terrorism.” He called for Obama’s resignation and for Clinton to leave the presidential race because of this omission, although, on Monday morning, she acknowledged that “radical Islamism” was one way of describing the Orlando gunman’s ideology.
“This has always been a country of we, not me,” Clinton said in her Cleveland speech, calling for unity in response to the mass shooting. She also said, “We are not a land of winners and losers,” calling on Americans to lift each other up.
In her speech, Clinton described the threat ISIS poses to the United States as dire, and referred to ISIS as “radical jihadists” who distort Islam to justify killing innocent people. She also said that the United States should “keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign” against ISIS.
“The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive,” she said. “We know already the barbarity that we face from radical jihadists is profound.”
Clinton also told the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that she and millions of Americans stood with them. “The terrorist in Orlando targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry, and an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans,” she said.
After her speech, Trump gave a national security address again calling for a ban on immigration from countries that have “a proven history of terrorism against the United States.” Trump incorrectly said the Orlando shooter was Afghan (he was American, born to Afghan parents) and suggested that curtailing immigration would prevent future attacks. Trump also said “Muslim communities” must cooperate with law enforcement.
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