Donald Trump is firing back at critics who said he suggested U.S. President Barack Obama might be linked to the Orlando shooting.
A day after 49 people were killed at a gay club in Orlando, Trump made vague comments some took as a suggestion Obama knows more about the violence than he’s letting on.
READ MORE: Orlando shooting the deadliest in American history, just the latest in long string of attacks
“He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox and Friends Monday morning.
“And either one is unacceptable, number one. And number two, calling on another gun ban; I mean, this man has no clue.”
The comments were made in response to Obama’s statements Sunday that more gun control is what’s needed to address the nation’s mass shootings.
The Orlando shooting is a “further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon” and go on a shooting frenzy, Obama said.
“And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.”
Trump told Fox and Friends Obama “has no clue.” He called for Obama to resign.
“We’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump said. “And the something else in mind — you know, people can’t believe it.
“People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.”
Trump’s comments didn’t go unnoticed, but he took offence to some reporting of his words.
In response to the Washington Post’s article, originally titled “Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting,” Trump pulled the organization’s press credentials, calling its coverage “incredibly inaccurate.”
The Washington Post appears to have later changed the headline to “Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting.” However, the page’s URL reflect’s the original headline.
Time, the New York Times and The Atlantic took similar approaches when covering Trump’s comments.
So far Monday, no other news organizations have had their credentials pulled by Trump’s camp.
There have been calls for Trump to clarify his comments, if he’s going to dispute how they have been interpreted.
When asked about his comments by the The Howie Carr Show Monday, Trump said he’ll “let people figure that out for themselves.”
He said Obama lacked passion and anger in his response to the Orlando massacre.
“You know, I’ll let that, we’ll let people figure it out. But it’s very, very, it’s a very sad situation when we have the kind of a tragedy that we had and we have a president that gave a press conference and he talks about gun control when this was a licensed person, who could have had a gun anyway.”
The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, legally purchased the firearms he used to kill 49 people early Sunday morning.
As for Trump’s opinion on the shooting, he says it’s lax immigration policies allowing “radical Islam” to infiltrate the U.S.
Monday afternoon he said immigration to the U.S. should be suspended “from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism.“
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