DONALD Trump and Hillary Clinton tore up their Presidential campaign schedules after the worst mass shooting in US history, but gave very different responses to the killing of at least 49 people in a gay nightclub by Omar Mateen.
Clinton postponed her first joint event with President Barack Obama tomorrow because of the Orlando shooting, and Trump cancelled a rally on yesterday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He changed the focus of his speech at Saint Anselm College from his case against Clinton to “this terrorist attack, immigration and national security”.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, pushed for gun control and reached out to the gay community. “The gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month,” she said. “To the LGBT community – please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them”. She urged action to keep assault weapons out of the hands of “terrorists or other violent criminals”.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, also offered words of support, but then declared it was “time to turn in” Muslims living in the US who were “sick with hate” and capable of carrying out similar massacres.
Trump, who has advocated a ban on Muslims being admitted to the US, said: “There are people out there with worse intentions than the perpetrator of the shootings in Orlando.”
On Sunday Trump called for Clinton to drop out of the race for president if she did not use the words “radical Islam” to describe the Florida nightclub massacre. Yesterday, she said: “To me radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I’m happy to say either, but that’s not the point. All this talk and demagoguery and rhetoric is not going to solve the problem”.
She added: “I’m not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That’s just plain dangerous and it plays into ISIS’s hands.”
But Trump then spent the day congratulating himself apparently for predicting more attacks inside the US.
One of his tweets said: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” He renewed talk of his plan to ban Muslims from the US for an indeterminate time.
In his address Obama called the tragedy an act of terror and hate. He did not talk about religious extremists, reluctant to inflame a stunned nation already on edge.
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