Hillary Clinton on Tuesday chastised Donald Trump for his “dangerous” policy proposals in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, arguing that none of them actually would have prevented the massacre.
“The terrorist in Orlando was not born in Afghanistan, as Trump claims,” Clinton said in a national security speech in Virginia. “He was born in Queens, New York, only miles away from where Donald Trump himself was born. A ban on Muslims would not have stopped this attack. Neither would a wall. I don’t know how one builds a wall to keep the Internet out.”
Omar Mateen, the man suspected of killing 49 people and wounding 53 more at the Pulse nightclub, was a U.S. citizen who had been interviewed repeatedly by the FBI about potential sympathies for Islamic extremism. Trump fumbled Mateen’s birthplace in a Monday speech, saying the suspected shooter “was born in Afghan—of Afghan parents who emigrated to the United States.”
Clinton said Trump’s policy speeches in the wake of the shooting, which involved plans to monitor Muslim-American communities and enforce a ban on Muslim immigration, were “wrong.”
“Not one of Donald Trump’s reckless ideas would have saved a single life in Orlando. It’s just more evidence that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be commander-in-chief,” Clinton said, noting that building trust in Muslim-American communities was key to countering the self-radicalization of men like Mateen.
The former secretary of state reiterated she would make “stopping lone wolves” a priority as president and would work to strengthen gun laws so that would-be terrorists couldn’t purchase firearms.
A CBS poll released Wednesday found that 25 percent of Americans said they approved of Trump’s response to the attack in Orlando, while 51 percent said they disapproved. Clinton fared better, with 36 percent approval compared to 34 percent disapproval.
