Donald Trump couldn’t resist making the deadliest mass shooing in American history all about him.
The presumptive Republican nominee tweeted that Omar Mateen’s slaughter of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, proves he was right about the threat of Muslim terrorists and that the ban he proposed on all Muslims entering the country—something he later referred to as a suggestion—would have somehow prevented Mateen (a U.S. citizen) from committing this atrocity.
Trump is also apparently calling on President Obama to resign for not saying the three magic words “radical Islamic terrorism,” nevermind the fact that Obama called it an “attack on all of us.”
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For Trump, mass murder and tragedy are often opportunities to plug a political belief or flaunt the fact that he got a hasty prediction right.
In the aftermath the San Bernadino terrorist attack last fall, which claimed the lives of 14 people, Trump retweeted someone saying that his poll numbers would go up as a result of these deaths. When EgyptAir Flight 804 crashed on its way to Cairo last month, Trump immediately said it was a terrorist attack before the cause was known and pivoted to politicizing the event.
During a victory speech in March, Trump proudly referred to the November terrorist attack in Paris as something that changed the scope of the race for him, helping to lift his poll numbers. “Something happened called Paris,” Trump said. “And all of a sudden, the poll numbers shot up. And I’m just very proud to be a part of this.”
Trump released a statement Sunday evening that doubled down on his claim that he predicted more terrorist attacks.
“If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen—and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can’t afford to be politically correct anymore,” the statement read.
Trump also demanded Hillary Clinton drop out of the presidential race if she doesn’t use “radical Islam” to describe the attack in Orlando. He plans on delivering a speech Monday in New Hampshire to address the massacre.
Not only is Trump rushing to profit politically from Orlando; he is also bulldozing the truth to do it.
It appears that Trump copied a tweet from Sebastian Gorka, an Islamophobic writer, alleging unverified reports that Marteen shouted “Allah Akbar!” during the shooting. CNN’s Brian Stelter initially flagged the similarities between the tweets. Gorka was also previously paid $8,000 by the Trump campaign for “policy consulting.” Gorka told The Daily Beast via email that he was not aware of the Trump tweet and that he is no longer consulting for the campaign. Gorka alleged he got his information from the Daily Mail.
