Seddique Mateen was standing in a crowd behind Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, during a campaign event Monday night, August 8, 2016, in Kissimmee, south of Orlando.
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WPTV approached Mateen after the rally and asked him how Clinton’s tribute to the Orlando victims affected him.
An official with the Clinton campaign said: ‘The rally was a 3,000-person, open-door event for the public.
Many criticised the decision to allow Seddique Mateen, however Mrs Clinton’s campaign team claim he was not invited to the event.
The father of the shooter in the Orlando nightclub massacre attended a Central Florida rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Asked about his son, Mr Mateen said he wished “my son (had) joined the army and fought ISIS” instead.
I asked Mateen if people in the crowd recognized him. Mateen even took photographs of Clinton with his cell phone and gave an interview to a local TV station after the rally.
Adding to the weird appearance is the father’s own background, as someone who has voiced support for the Taliban and at one point declared himself the leader of a “transitional” Afghanistan government.
“She disagrees with his views and disavows his support”, Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement sent to reporters just after 11 p.m. Tuesday night.
According to CNN – following the deadly shooting – Clinton called for stricter gun control and renewed efforts to root homegrown terrorism and in the Middle East. Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump, however, positioned himself against new gun legislation and blamed American Muslims for not reporting “mad men” to local law enforcement to Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mateen is recognizable, in part, because he did so many interviews after the nightclub attack.
“If they’re not ready, I still say to them, ‘I’m sorry, ‘” he said.
You know, for once we don’t doubt that Clinton’s campaign is telling the truth … but imagine for a moment that a character like this showed up at a Donald Trump rally?
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“Hillary has been supporting the LGBT community, she’s been to Pulse, you know, to find out he was there, it’s really disappointing”, Ceballo said. He said he and Hansen posed for pictures with the Democratic presidential nominee backstage after the event.
