Clinton, Trump clash over national security in wake of latest terrorism

[chahlley]

(Hot News Today • Wednesday 21 September 2016)

Clinton, Trump clash over national security in wake of latest terrorism

Our country has been weak. We’re letting people in by the thousands and tens of thousands. We are trying to be so politically correct in our country. What I said is you have to stop them from coming into our country. Mr Donald Trump
 

I’m the only candidate in this race who has been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield. I have sat at that table in the Situation Room.  I know how to do this. Mrs Hillary Clinton

WASHINGTON — A rash of attacks on American soil has thrust the issue of national security into the presidential campaign, with Mrs Hillary Clinton seeking to show a steady hand and Mr Donald Trump saying America needed to be tougher on terror and immigration as he called for vigorous police profiling of people from the Muslim world.

The starkly different responses from the duelling White House hopefuls came after a bombing in New York, a mass stabbing in Minnesota and a New Jersey pipe-bomb blast over the weekend.

The attacks could reframe the presidential race around stark questions of national security after weeks of often-bitter sniping between Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton over more personal matters of character, transparency and medical records.

The violence of the weekend is all but certain to ripple in the first presidential debate, set for next Monday at Hofstra University on Long Island.

For both the candidates and their parties, the three attacks which left 37 injured are a critical inflection point.

Not since the Iraq war has the mantle of national security and protection been more vigorously contested than it has been in this campaign, or its textures more difficult to define.

With seven weeks left in the campaign, the candidates’ responses to an apparent terrorist plot on American soil could sharply alter voters’ views not only of them but of the parties they lead. And both candidates set up extraordinary stakes, each asserting that the other was not only wrong on national security, but actively abetting terrorists in word or deed.

At an airfield hangar draped with United States flags, Mrs Clinton sought to show she has the temperament, smarts and experience needed to be commander-in-chief.

“I’m the only candidate in this race who has been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield. I have sat at that table in the Situation Room. I know how to do this,” said the former secretary of state, as she accused Mr Trump of giving “aid and comfort” to Islamic State (IS) with his campaign oratory.

“We’re going after the bad guys, and we’re going to get them, but we’re not going after an entire religion,” she added. “We know that Donald Trump’s comments have been used online for the recruitment of terrorists.”

Mr Trump’s chosen platform was not the podium, but the bully pulpit — a television news chat show popular with conservative voters, underscoring how central the media has been to  his improbable campaign.

He sought to convince Americans that these latest attacks — which left about 40 injured — are an inevitable result of Mrs Clinton and President Barack Obama’s lax anti-terror and immigration policies.

“Our country has been weak. We’re letting people in by the thousands and tens of thousands,” Mr Trump told Fox News, adding that authorities “are afraid to do anything because they don’t want to be accused of profiling”.

“We are trying to be so politically correct in our country. What I said is you have to stop them from coming into our country.”

Speaking later at a rally in Florida, he blasted Mrs Clinton for failing, as a member of the Obama administration, to stop the rise of IS.

“Her weakness, her ineffectiveness, caused the problem, and now she wants to be President,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

An Afghan-born American man, a suspect in the bombings in New York and New Jersey, was shot and taken into custody on Monday. The Minnesota stabbing was carried out by a 22-year-old Somali-American with possible links to IS, who was shot and killed by an off-duty policeman.

In two separate polls before the weekend, voters gave Mrs Clinton a slight edge on the question of who would better handle terrorism and national security.

Some polling suggests that she has a bigger lead over Mr Trump on related questions — who would be a better commander-in-chief, for example — than past Democratic nominees have had over Republicans. AGENCIES