Clinton, Trump clash on terrorism, Orlando attack

The way Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump respond to the terrorist attack in Orlando in the coming days will offer voters a preview of this year’s general election campaign for the White House.

Clinton, a former secretary of state whose top surrogate will be President Barack Obama, delivered a detailed policy speech Monday, outlining how she would defeat terrorist groups abroad and provide more assistance to intelligence officials in the United States.

“The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive,” Clinton said in subdued remarks in Cleveland. “And we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values.”

Trump, whose surprising popularity stems in part from Americans’ fears about the future, blamed Obama and Clinton for their roles in improperly vetting people entering the United States and renewed his call for a temporary ban on Muslims. The United States does have a system for processing immigrants. In the Orlando case, the shooter was American-born.

“This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan Horse ever was,” Trump said in a speech in New Hampshire. “Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children.”

The dueling speeches came a day after Omar Mateen, a security guard who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, fatally shot 49 people and injured 53 others at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando.

The massacre – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001 – all but ensures that national security will take center stage in the race for the 45th president.

The responses from Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, not only offer Americans glimpses of how they plan to campaign, but also also how they would govern.

Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, said both Clinton and Trump gave speeches that were consistent with their personalities and their messages as they head into the fall election season. “They’re setting the table for what the conventions will be like next month,” he said.

Clinton scrapped plans for a fundraiser Monday and campaign remarks in the battleground state of Ohio for a policy speech that called for more coalition-led airstrikes against the Islamic State extremist group in Syria and Iraq, creating a team to combat terrorist “lone wolves” who become radicalized without traveling overseas and calling on Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait to help stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations.

For the most part, her proposals were not new. She has given a series of speeches on fighting terrorism after attacks in Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino, Calif.

“The attack in Orlando makes it even more clear; we cannot contain this threat,” she said. “We must defeat it.”

Clinton did not mention Trump by name but criticized his plan to monitor American-born Muslims and mosques and to ban Muslims temporarily from entering the United States.

She also mentioned the bipartisanship atmosphere that came after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when she was a senator from New York. “America is strongest when we all believe we have a stake in our country and our future,” she said.

But she also called for a ban on assault weapons like the AR-15 used in Orlando, and she expressed her support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“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. “You have millions of allies who will always have your back,” she said. “And I am one of them.”

Speaking at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College, Trump reiterated that he was right about the terrorist threat and chided Clinton for refusing to call the Orlando attack an act of radical Islamic terrorism. She did earlier Monday, dismissing it as a matter of semantics.

Trump, who canceled a planned speech solely focused on Clinton, renewed his call for a temporary ban on immigration from countries that he views as posing a terrorist threat to the United States and accused Obama and Clinton of being politically correct.

“They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety, and above all else. I refuse to be politically correct,” he said.

Trump proclaimed himself more of a friend of the LGBT community than Clinton is, declaring that she and Obama are allowing a terrorist element into the United States while at the same time trying to take Americans’ guns away from them.

“Our nation stands together in solidarity with members of Orlando’s LGBT community. They have been through something nobody could ever experience,” he said. “A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub, not only because he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens, because of their sexual orientation.”

Throughout the speech, Trump weaved together immigration, terrorism and guns. He announced that he’ll be meeting with the National Rifle Association – which endorsed his candidacy in May – to “discuss how to ensure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror.”

Trump alternated between professing his admiration for America’s Muslim community and blasting it for not alerting law enforcement about the Orlando shooter.

Before he delivered his remarks, Trump, who led the effort to call into question Obama’s American citizenship, implied in television interviews that President Obama somehow played a role in the massacre. He said Obama was either “not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind.”

Lesley Clark in Washington contributed.

This story was originally published June 13, 2016 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Clinton, Trump clash on terrorism, Orlando attack."