Donald Trump said his NH speech wouldn’t be to attack Hillary Clinton. So much for that.
Donald Trump prefaced his speech Monday by noting he had planned to attack Hillary Clinton, but in light of the mass shooting in Orlando over the weekend, he would save that opportunity for another time.
“I will deliver that speech very, very soon,” the presumptive Republican nominee told a room full of supporters at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.
Very soon, indeed.
Roughly 10 minutes into the teleprompter-aided speech, Trump attacked Clinton for not saying “radical Islam” in her description of recent terrorist attacks.
“She’s in total denial,” he said, “and her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the entire world. True weakness.”
Clinton did say Monday she is willing to use the words “radical Islam,” which Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama for not doing. Yet, she did so with some irreverence toward the weight attached to them.
“She has no clue, in my opinion, what radical Islam is, and she won’t speak honestly about it if she does in fact know,” Trump said.
After reiterating his plan to temporarily ban Muslims from coming to the country, Trump seemingly expanded the proposal to “suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies.”
Trump continued to go after Clinton on issues of guns, immigration, and foreign policy, as he swerved on and off his pre-written remarks, in which Clinton’s name was mentioned 19 times.
After he incorrectly stated that Clinton has proposed to ban guns and abolish the Second Amendment, Trump pointed to the attacks last year in Paris, in which weapons were bought and transported through the black market, as evidence that strict gun laws are not effective.
“She wants to take away Americans’ guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us,” Trump said of Clinton.
The real estate developer-turned-political candidate also criticized Clinton for the State Department’s immigrant screening process during her time as secretary of state and her proposal to allow more refugees from Syria to enter the United States.
“This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan horse ever was,” Trump said, adding that it admitted “hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them.”
Clinton has proposed to increase the number of refugees from Syria entering the United States from 10,000 to 65,000 a year. Secretary of State John Kerry announced last fall the United States would increase the total number of refugees accepted from 70,000 to 100,000 in 2017 under the current vetting process, which can take up to two years.
The Clinton campaign quickly pointed out during the speech that she supports “rigorous vetting” and that visa applicants who has traveled within five years to a country facing problems with terrorism is subject to a “full visa investigation.”
Trump also looked to reframe his immigration ban as a policy in support of women and the LGBT community.
“Radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-American,” he said, later adding that “Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country—they enslave women, and murder gays.”
Trump also called out Clinton for the United States’ intervention in Libya, which he said “helped unleash ISIS” in Africa, despite his own past support in 2011, when he urged the United States to intervene.
Trump concluded his speech Monday with a slew of pledges to improve the country.
“We will protect our borders at home,” he said. “We will defeat ISIS overseas. We will ensure every parent can raise their children in peace and safety. We will make America rich again. We will make America safe again. We will make American Great Again.”
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