WASHINGTON — The worst mass shooting in U.S. history shook the presidential campaign Monday, sending Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump scrambling to position themselves as best-qualified to lead a nation on edge over terrorism and gun violence.
In a flurry of TV interviews, Trump redoubled his call for banning Muslims who come from other countries, although the shooter in Sunday's Orlando nightclub attack was an American citizen born in New York. While Trump focused in particular on keeping out refugees from Syria, he said a ban should apply to people from "different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible."
The presumptive Republican nominee also appeared to suggest that President Barack Obama may sympathize with Islamic terrorists — a stunning statement about the current commander in chief.
"He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends." ''It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable."
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, warned against demonizing an entire religion, saying doing so would play into the hands of the Islamic State group. Like Obama, Clinton has often avoided using the phrase "radical Islam," which has deeply angered Republicans. On Monday, she said "it matters what we do more than what we say."
"We can call it radical jihadism, we can call it radical Islamism," Clinton said on CNN's "New Day." ''But we also want to reach out to the vast majority of American-Muslims and Muslims around this country, this world, to help us defeat this threat, which is so evil and has got to be denounced by everyone, regardless of religion."
She also renewed her call for an assault weapons ban that would outlaw one of the weapons used by the Orlando shooter. "We know the gunman used a weapon of war to shoot down at least 50 innocent Americans," she told CNN,
The attack left 49 people dead and dozens injured. The gunman died in a shootout with police.
Clinton and Trump planned to address the shooting further in back-to-back speeches Monday. Clinton was speaking at an event in Cleveland and Trump in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Trump's speech was originally supposed to focus on his case against Clinton, as well as her husband, former President Bill Clinton. But he abruptly switched his focus following the attacks on the gay nightclub in Orlando.
The horrific shooting consumed the White House race just as Trump and Clinton were fully plunging into the general election campaign. It served as a reminder to the candidates and voters alike that the next president will lead a nation facing unresolved questions about how to handle threats that can feel both foreign and all too familiar.
Authorities identified the killer in Orlando as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim. FBI officials said they had investigated him in 2013 and 2014 on suspicion of terrorist sympathies but could not make a case against him.
Mateen opened fire at the Pulse Orlando club with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in such close quarters that the bullets could hardly miss. He called 911 during the attack to profess allegiance to the Islamic State.
Obama said there was no clear evidence that the shooter was directed to conduct his attack or was part of a larger plot. Following an FBI briefing Monday, he said it appeared Mateen was "inspired by various extremist information disseminated over the internet."
Trump said there were thousands of people living in the United States "sick with hate" and capable of carrying out the same sort of massacre.
"The problem is we have thousands of people right now in our country. You have people that were born in this country" who are susceptible to becoming "radicalized," the billionaire real estate mogul said on Fox. He claimed there are Muslims living here who "know who they are" and said it was time to "turn them in."
Trump's longstanding proposal to temporarily ban foreign-born Muslims from entering the United States has triggered outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike, who see it unconstitutional, un-American and counterproductive. But it has helped him win over many primary voters who fear the rise of Islamic extremism and believe that "political correctness" — the fear of offending Muslims — is damaging national security.
Trump focused much of his ire Monday on Obama, raising questions about whether the president sympathizes with Islamic terrorists. Trump has long suggested Obama is a Muslim or born in his father's homeland of Kenya, despite the president being a Christian who was born in Hawaii.
"There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said on NBC's "Today" show. "A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn't know what he's doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it."
ANALYSIS: TRUMP AND CLINTON CONTRASTS IN ORLANDO RESPONSE
WASHINGTON — For Donald Trump, the mass shooting in Florida was a moment to redouble his call for tougher action against terrorism and to take credit for "being right" about the threat. For Hillary Clinton, it was a time to choose words carefully and reiterate her call for keeping "weapons of war" off America's streets.
The responses of Trump and Clinton to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history — 49 were killed and dozens were injured — were a study in contrasts for the two presumptive presidential nominees — one of whom will soon be leading a country fearful of terrorism, gun violence and the often merciless intersection of the two.
The motive behind Sunday's early morning rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando was unknown when Trump and Clinton began weighing in — although a law enforcement source later said the gunman, identified by authorities as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen, made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State.
As information began trickling out, Trump took to Twitter to say he was "praying" for the victims and their families. "When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?" he wrote.
Within a few hours, the presumptive Republican nominee was back on social media saying that he'd appreciated "the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." After President Barack Obama did not use that same phrase to describe Mateen in his remarks from the White House, Trump released a statement saying the president "should step down."
Trump kept up his criticism of the president Monday. He told NBC's "Today Show" that "there are a lot of people that think that maybe (Obama) doesn't want to get" the terror threat facing the country.
Trump is hardly the first politician to try to capitalize on a tragedy, though he's more blatant than most in connecting his electoral prospects to incidents of unimaginable suffering. Shortly after last year's deadly attacks in Paris, Trump said, "Whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country. We have weak, sad politicians."
After a deadly December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, Trump stunned many in his own party by calling for a temporary ban on Muslims coming to the U.S. Rather than sink his political prospects, it helped propel the businessman to his first victories in the GOP primary.
For Trump's detractors, his comments can appear jarring and crass. But he's also tapped into a deep frustration among some voters who believe Obama has been handcuffed in his response to terror threats because he's worried about offending Muslims in the U.S. and around the world.
"We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump declared Sunday. He cancelled a rally scheduled for Monday, but planned to go forward with a speech in New Hampshire, changing the topic from his case against Clinton to national security.
Clinton, who is more schooled in the political customs of responding to tragedies from her years as a senator and secretary of state, was careful in her initial comments. The presumptive Democratic nominee also made her first remarks on Twitter early Sunday, writing: "As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act."
Like Obama, Clinton prefers to avoid early missteps even if that leaves her looking overly cautious. On Sunday, she waited for the president to declare the shooting an "act of terror" before doing the same.
Clinton didn't avoid the prospect of a link to international terrorism in her statement, though she was vague in her language. In several televised phone interviews Monday morning, she warned against feeding propaganda by the Islamic State group that convinces new recruits the U.S. hates Islam.
"Turning against the Muslim American community is not only wrong, it's counterproductive and dangerous," she told MSNBC.
Clinton did use the shooting to raise the nation's failure to keep guns "out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals." Federal authorities said later Sunday that Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so.
Clinton and Obama postponed plans to campaign together Wednesday in Wisconsin, a decision driven both by political appearances and an expectation the president would need to spend his week overseeing the government's response to the shooting. Still, Clinton planned to continue with solo campaign stops Monday in Ohio and Tuesday in Pennsylvania.
Whether the tragedy in Orlando ultimately sways the trajectory of the general election campaign is unknown. If current trends hold, there will be more deadly mass shootings in the U.S. before voters head to the polls in November.
Other unforeseen events will likely also shape the race over the next five months, as the 2008 economic collapse did in the closing weeks of that year's presidential campaign.
But as voters begin seriously weighing Clinton and Trump as their next commander in chief, Sunday's shooting left little doubt that the choice between the two candidates is stark.
