'He was more angry at me than he was at the shooter!': Birthday-boy Trump blasts Obama
Donald Trump
celebrated his 70th birthday in North Carolina with a serenade from an
estimated 9,000 people and a vicious rebuttal to an afternoon of attacks
lodged by Hillary Clinton and the president they both hope to replace.
'Happy birthday? Ah, don't tell me about my birthday!' he grinned as the singing started.
Trump's
smile turned quickly into a pointed glare, though, as he blamed 'weak,
ineffective people' in President Barack Obama's administration for what
he said was an out-of-control immigration problem linked to the
weekend's gun massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
In
a rare break from the no-drama-Obama voters have come to expect, the
president unleashed an angry lecture on Trump in the afternoon, painting
him as a know-nothing poseur whose lack of nuanced foreign policy
knowledge and china-shop-bull approach to diplomacy would threaten to
turn the Arab world against Americans and radicalize a new generation of
Islamist jihadis.
Trump scoffed.
'I watched President Obama today. And he was more angry at me than he was at the shooter!' he marveled.
'The level of anger – that's the kind of anger he should have for the shooter, and these killers that shouldn't be here.'
And
the presumptive Republican presidential nominee dismissed Obama's
law-school oration questioning the value of branding extremist attacks
as the work of 'radical Islamic terrorism' – a seldom-heard turn of
phrase Trump has used for months to clobber reticent Democrats.
Trump
said the U.S. had no hope of maintaining homeland security 'if you
don't know what the term is, and if you don't discuss what the problem
is, and if you can't say the real name.'
'We
have a radical Islamic terrorism problem, folks,' he argued. 'We can
say we don't. We can pretend like Obama that we don't, where Obama spent
a long time talking about it and nobody at the end of that speech
understood anything other than, "Boy, does he hate Donald Trump".'
Trump
has sought for the past 48 hours to tie the Orlando murders to a lax
immigration program that admits too many loosely screened Arabs, and to
Clinton's pledge to increase America's commitment to resettle Syrian
refugees by 550 per cent.
'Every
year we bring in more than 100,000 lifetime immigrants from the Middle
East, and many more from Muslim countries outside of the Middle East,'
Trump said.
'A
number of these immigrants have hostile attitudes toward women, toward
gays and people of different faiths,' he added, claiming that 'Hillary
Clinton's immigration plan would bring in millions of unvetted
immigrants – or very poorly vetted – and how can you vet somebody when
you have no idea where they come from, you have no idea about the
paperwork?'
'It
doesn't take a big percentage' to be deadly, he said. 'Look what one
whack-job – look at this one whack, this one horrible savage – look what
he did in a short period of time to great young people!'
Trump
extended his circle of suspicion on Tuesday night to the Orlando
attacker's in-laws, likely unaware that FBI agents were raising their
California home as his motorcade was en route to the arena.
'Now
there are reports that ... the second wife knew about the attack but
may have not told the authorities,' he said of the Florida massacre.
'Nobody really knows. Her family reportedly is from Afghanistan.'
Clinton
and Obama spent part of Tuesday arguing that the Muslim man who killed
more than four dozen people in the wee hours of Saturday night was
himself a native-born American.
But
'the killer's parents emigrated from Afghanistan,' Trump told his
crowd, citing news reports that 'the children of Muslim immigrant
parents are responsible for a growing number, for whatever reason, a
growing number of terrorist attacks.'
'The killer's Afghan father supported the Taliban, which believes in violently oppressing women and gays,' Trump fumed.
'Once again we've seen that political correctness is deadly. They don't want to talk about the problem,' he said.
Trump
continued to wind a thread from his Monday speech in New Hampshire,
where he argued that Clinton is a poor representative for women and
homosexuals because she has enabled a wave of immigrants from countries
known for oppressing and abusing both groups.
'We
want to live in a country where gay and lesbian Americans and all
Americans are safe from radical Islam – which, by the way, wants to
murder and has murdered gays, and they enslave women,' Trump said.
And he
heaped scorn on Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton,
for accepting millions in donations to their family foundation from
Saudi Arabia and other nations in the Middle East.
They
collected '$25 million from certain countries – and much more than that
when you add it up – that treat women horrendously, that kill gays,' he
said, calling on them to return the money while shouts of 'USA! USA!'
ramped up in intensity.
'Since
9/11 the United States has admitted more than a half-million immigrants
from countries where being gay is punishable by death,' Trump claimed.
'Hillary
Clinton – Crooked Hillary as we all know her, which she is – wants to
increase these immigration numbers very, very substantially. She's no
friend of women and she's no friend of LGBT Americans.'
'How
can you be a friend when these countries are oppressive to LGBT, when
they're oppressive to everybody?' he said, directing the crowd's
attention once more to the Clinton Foundation's fundraising.
'How can you be a friend to women when you take money from people that enslave women?'
'And then women like Hillary better than Donald Trump?' he asked. 'I don't think so. I'll be honest. I don't think so.'
Trump
drew wild applause before he began his speech by announcing the
endorsement of NASCAR racing legend Richard Petty, who came on stage to
be acknowledged but did not speak.
The
rally was interrupted a handful of times by protesters, with Trump
urging police and his supporters each time to be gentle with them.
Greensboro
Police Department Deputy Chief Brian Cheek said after the rally that a
total of 20 people were ejected from the event. Seven of them, he added,
were rrested for trespassing when they refused to leave the premises.
Trump
will hold a noontime rally Wednesday in Atlanta and make stops in
Houston and Dallas before stumping Saturday in Las Vegas and Phoenix.
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