The responses to the terror attack that left scores dead on Thursday in Nice, France by the presumptive presidential candidates again underscores their contrasting approaches to foreign affairs, with Clinton’s preference for intelligence gathering and diplomacy compared to Trump’s more hawkish approach to terrorism. He spoke after a truck carrying weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk in Nice, France, and plowed through people celebrating Bastille Day, killing at least 77 people.
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“This is war. If you look at it, this is war”.
“Our alliance with France is so strong…we need to stand strongly with them…We need to strengthen our alliances and I include North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in that”, Clinton told O’Reilly pointedly, her GOP rival Donald Trump having suggested North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is “obsolete”. “This is war, Bill”, Trump responded, adding, “Unless we get strong and really, really smart leadership, it’s only going to get worse”.
Trump has responded to other recent shootings and attacks on social media.
“I would be making it very, very hard for people to come into our country for one thing from terrorist areas”.
“We are at war with the terrorist groups and what they represent”.
Cooper then asked Clinton if the US was at war with “radical Islam” – a phrase Trump often uses on the campaign trail and says is necessary to identify the threat.
Though he said he is talking about the United States, he is “almost talking about the world”.
“As we take territory back from ISIS forces they will try to engage in other terrorist attacks”, said Clinton.
“This is a war against people who are vicious, violent people that we have no idea who they are, where they come from”.
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Trump went on to argue that mobilizing North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would be “just fine” and mentioned that the US supports North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, so the country may as well use it. He called ISIS a “cancer” that’s spreading everywhere and must be eliminated at all costs. Donald Trump called into both Greta Van Susteren and O’Reilly on Thursday night, but that isn’t exactly a rarity these days. An MSNBC report in 2015 headlined “Tunisia: ISIS Breeding Ground”, observed, “The country whose revolution sparked the Arab Spring is now a top breeding ground for new ISIS fighters”.
