The Six Most Ludicrous Claims Trump and His Minions Have Made Since the Orlando Attack
June 13, 2016
Photo Credit: FlickR/Gage Skidmore
Donald Trump and his posse of crazies
have been on a roll since Sunday, when news broke that officials are
investigating the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando as
potential terror attack. The presumptive Republican nominee took to his
two favorite media (Twitter and the morning talk shows) to espouse
ludicrous talking points, including taking credit for “being right on
radical Islamic terrorism” (he thinks its bad), and insinuating
President Barack Obama is either woefully unengaged or intentionally
complicit in the Orlando attack.
Here’s a run-down of all the insane rhetoric Trump, and his henchmen, have proclaimed since the horrible attack.
1. Trump: I Don’t Want Congrats, But I Was Right!
This
gem of a response came a mere 7 hours after the Orlando Police
Department confirmed the shooter dead. After receiving a deluge of
criticism for humblebragging about his superior, foresight, Trump told Fox and Friends he’s “been right about a lot of things.”
“I’m
getting thousands of letters and tweets that I was right about the
whole situation,” Trump said. “I mean, I’ve been right about a lot of
things, frankly.”
He also took to NBC’s Today
Monday morning to expand upon his prediction after co-host Savannah
Guthrie pointedly asked, “Why are you giving yourself credit for
predicting something that everyone knows will happen?”
“I
had been receiving tens of thousands of tweets, literally tweets and
calls and letters and everything. Because I’ve been the one that
predicted it,” Trump told Guthrie. “And I’m the one that said what you
should be doing. And I don’t want the credit.”
"I don't want the credit,” Trump repeated. “What I said is I want you to be strong and vigilant and I want you to be smart.”
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni called Trump’s reaction “very small and very unhelpful,” telling MSNBC’s Morning Joe Trump is “taking a victory lap on 50 bodies.”
2: Trump Insinuates President Obama May ‘Get [Islamic Terrorism] Better than Anybody’
In one of his most ludicrous suggestions to date, Trump suggested on Fox & Friends
the president either “doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody
understands,” adding “it’s one or the other and either one is
unacceptable.”
“Our
government, we’re led by a man that is a very– look, we’re led by a man
that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in
mind,” Trump said.
“And the
something else in mind—people can’t believe it. People cannot, they
cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and can’t
even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism,” Trumps continued.
“There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something
going on.”
Later on Today,
Trump offered a softer insinuation, suggesting the president is simply
ignorant of the threat posed by radical terrorists. “There are a lot of
people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it,” Trump said.
3: Trump Renews Call for a Ban on All Muslims Entering the U.S.—Even Though the Shooter Was Born in America
Following
the attack, Trump repeated his call for a temporary ban on Muslims
entering the United States, despite the fact that the shooter, a U.S.
citizen, was born in New York. He also claimed Clinton wants to
“dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East.”
Former
Republican candidate Marco Rubio Monday said what everyone else was
thinking, insisting Trump’s Muslim ban proposal would not have prevented
the attack in Orlando.
“[The suspect] was born in the United States, he was raised in this country,” Rubio told BBC’s Today.
“He lived among us, he worked jobs here, this is a person who
benefitted from all the freedoms and the prosperity of this great
country and despite all that was radicalized and took the life of 50 of
his fellow Americans.”
4. Trump Calls for President Obama to Resign and Hillary Clinton to Concede Because They Won’t Say ‘Radical Islam'
In
his campaign’s official statement, Trump lambasted President Obama and
Hillary Clinton for being “politically correct” and refusing to say the
U.S. faces a threat from radical Islamic terrorism. He also claimed
Clinton is “afraid to mention it because her boss will be angry at her.”
President Obama is on record
using the term radical Islam, but also says using the term gives undue
legitimacy to those who commit violent acts against innocent civilians.
"They are not religious leaders” Obama said in February. “They’re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
In response, Clinton said Trump is “obsessed with name calling.”
"If [Trump] is somehow suggesting I don't call this for what it is, he hasn't been listening,” Clinton told NBC's Today.
“I have clearly said that we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to
justify slaughtering innocent people. And, to me, radical jihadism,
radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say
either, but that's not the point."
5. Trump Erroneously Claims the Gunman Shouted “Allah hu Akbar!” During the Attack
In an unsourced tweet, Trump said reports indicate the gunman praised Allah while he unleashed fire on Pulse nightclub.
There
are no reports to substantiate this claim. As Brian Stelter of CNN
points out, Trump appears to have sourced the tweet from Sebastian
Gorka, a frequent Fox News guest and Beirtbart columnist who, as Mediaite reports, ‘was paid $8,000 by the Trump campaign for ‘policy consulting.’”
6. Bonus! Roger Stone: Clinton Aide Huma Abedin Could be a ‘Saudi Spy’ or a ‘Terrorist Agent’
Self-proclaimed
“GOP hitman,” Trump buddy and all-around conspiracy theorist Roger
Stone Monday told Breitbart News Daily that Clinton’s longtime aide Huma
Abedin’s family is comprised of “hardcore Islamic ideologues.”
“I
also think that now that Islamic terrorism is going to be front and
center, there’s going to be a new focus on whether this administration,
the administration of Hillary Clinton at State was permeated at the
highest levels by Saudi intelligence and others who are not loyal
Americans," Stone said, according to Politico.
"I speak specifically of Huma Abedin, the right-hand woman, now
vice-chairman or co-chairman of vice, of Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign."
This isn’t the first time a
conservatives launched an attack on Abedin’s Muslim faith. In 2012, Sen.
John McCain gave an impassioned defense of Abedin in light of
accusations she’s connected to the Muslim brotherhood, calling the
insinuations “unwarranted and unfounded.”
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