Then he addressed the accusation – a fetishized Republican talking point, repeated by Mr. Trump after Orlando – that Mr. Obama is surrendering to the enemy by avoiding the label “radical Islam”. Obama, he said, was more upset at how Trump had responded to the attacks than about the massacre itself.
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The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, was born in the United States to immigrants from Afghanistan. The death of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando attacked by a self-described Islamic State sympathiser has poured kerosene on an already angry election-year debate over guns, counterterrorism, sexuality and faith.
Trump, who returned to North Carolina for the first time since the primaries, as the presumptive Republican nominee, that Hillary Clinton would allow thousands more refugees into this country from the Middle East.
“Hillary Clinton just yesterday used the term ‘radical Islam, ‘” the billionaire told the crowd.
Trump’s Muslim ban is “not the America we want”, Obama said.
“It’s happening all over and it’s getting worse and it’s going to continue to get worse until they respect us”, Trump said of the threat of terrorism.
“We can call it radical jihadism, we can call it radical Islamism”, Clinton said on CNN’s “New Day”.
US Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who sources say is among the Republicans that Trump is considering for his vice-presidential nominee, said he was “discouraged” by the way the Trump campaign was going. Other media outlets made similar deductions from Trump’s comments, or they took the comments as a suggestion that Obama has sympathies that stop him from vigorously fighting terrorism. Trump asked. “Do you agree with me, protester?” he said, addressing a man who was heckling him from the audience.
“We don’t need conspiracy theories and pathological self-congratulations”, Clinton said. And the something else in mind – you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on.
Obama dismissed the criticism as a “political talking point” and “not a strategy”, and he pointed to his success in tracking Osama bin Laden and other leaders, as evidence of his success. Obama demanded to know in an unusually raw appearance before the press with top aides and officials to discuss the fight against Isis that has become dominated by the response to the Orlando shooting. “Trump, as usual, is obsessed with name-calling”, she said.
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The U.S. President had earlier in a speech ripped through Trump’s “Muslim ban” rhetoric, saying such a risky mindset will make the Muslim Americans feel that their government is betraying them. He also doubled down on his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. But they have also triggered heavy condemnation from minority and human rights activists, and his political opponents – many of whom have called his rhetoric racist. They’re trying to exasperate the divides within the GOP by presenting Clinton as a safe choice for the party’s more moderate voters.
