After the horrific events in Orlando over the weekend, Donald Trump took this opportunity not to comfort the country or victims, but to congratulate himself on his groundbreaking prediction that Islamic extremists would commit an act of terror in America. “I called it” he said on Twitter about the worst terror attack in the US since 9/11, an attack leaving 50 dead, with as many wounded.

Trump then asked for the resignations of Obama and Clinton for their reticence to use the term “radical Islam,” for reasons we’ve outlined before.

But most shockingly, on interview shows yesterday and this morning Trump seemed to imply that President Obama was involved in or at the very least sympathetic to the attackers, in a series of vague insinuations. He seemed to be reviving the notion that the President is Muslim, but refused to elaborate. This morning on an interview with Fox News Trump stated “We’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. 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.”

Is Trump actually implying that Obama knew about or participated in these attacks? What else could he be talking about that “there’s something going on” except the false notion that Obama is Muslim and looking the other way? “He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands — it’s one or the other and either one is unacceptable,” he continued. On the Today Show he posited a conspiracy theory that perhaps Obama is looking the other way, without details or evidence, saying “Well there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. 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. He doesn’t want to see what’s really happening. And that could be.”

Donald Trump has taken this opportunity of a national tragedy not to comfort the country and mourn the dead in Orlando, but to trumpet his own agenda and to brag about his prescience. “I mean, I’ve been right about a lot of things, frankly… I was right about many, many things,” he modestly told Fox News this morning. He obliquely insinuates heinous conspiracy theories about President Obama, dividing instead of trying to bring the country together. Instead of trying to get at the root of the problem of “radical Islam,” he espouses jingoistic reactionary responses to complicated and delicate problems he doesn’t understand.

There are five more months until the election, hopefully Donald Trump will be able to give us more details on how he plans to solve the problem of American-born jihadi terrorism. So far his plan seems to consist entirely of being “tough, smart and vigilant.”

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/13/donald-trump-suggests-president-obama-was-involved-with-orlando-shooting/
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j-trump-statement-regarding-tragic-terrorist-attacks
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-trump-again-pushes-boundaries-political-dialogue-n590941
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-orlando-radical-islam-obama-hillary-clinton
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-orlando_us_575d92e6e4b0e39a28addbe6
‘I Called It’: Trump Says He Predicted Terrorist Attack, Criticizes Obama and Clinton