Hillary Clinton on Tuesday responded to the litany of attacks Donald Trump unleashed against her after the Orlando shooting, saying the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is telling lies because he “has nothing substantive to say for himself.”
Clinton’s response comes one day after Trump delivered a blistering takedown of his Democratic rival. He said Clinton wants to ban guns and supports immigration plans that would bring radicalized terrorists into the United States, both claims she refuted during her speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“These are demonstrably lies. But he feels compelled to tell them because he has to distract us from the fact he has nothing substantive to say for himself,” Clinton said.
Trump did make a number of inaccurate statements in his address, including a false claim that the shooter who killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando over the weekend was born “in Afghan.” He was born in New York.
At nearly the same time Clinton was speaking, President Barack Obama slammed Trump for his proposed ban on Muslims and sharp criticism of Obama for not using the term “radical Islam.”
“There's no magic to the phrase radical Islam, it's a political talking point," Obama said after meeting with his National Security Council to discuss ISIS. "The reason I am careful has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with defeating extremism."
Clinton similarly said in her speech: “Is Donald Trump saying that somehow there are magic words that once uttered will stop terrorists from coming after us?"
Speaking about the threat of terrorism on Monday, Trump said Obama “doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands” and told Fox News "there's something going on” as to why the president does not use the term radical Islam.
“It was one thing when he was a reality TV personality, raising his arms and yelling ‘You’re fired!’ It is another thing altogether when it is the Republican party's presumptive nominee for president,” Clinton said Tuesday. “Americans, we don’t need conspiracy theories and pathological self-congratulations.”
And in an effort to further contrast her tone from that of Trump, Clinton concluded her speech by reading from a letter that former President George H.W. Bush left in the Oval Office for her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in 1993.
"It had some good advice on staying focused on what matter despite the critics. It wished him happiness and, it concluded with these words: ‘You will be our president, when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success is now our country’s success and I am rooting hard for you,'” Clinton said, growing emotional. “That’s the America we love.”
