Hillary Clinton’s willingness to utter the phrase “radical Islamism” during a Monday interview on CNN was Donald Trump’s doing — or so the presumptive Republican presidential nominee claims.
Trump, who has long criticized President Obama and Clinton for their reluctance to describe the U.S. as being at war with “radical Islam,” took credit on Monday for pushing Clinton to finally use a version of the phrase.
“I have been hitting Obama and Crooked Hillary hard on not using the term Radical Islamic Terror,” Trump tweeted. “Hillary just broke — said she would now use!”
I have been hitting Obama and Crooked Hillary hard on not using the term Radical Islamic Terror. Hillary just broke-said she would now use!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2016
Hours prior, Clinton told CNN she would be “happy” to use the terms “radical jihadism” or “radical Islamism” to describe the extremist ideology that radicalized individuals like the recent mass shooter in Orlando, Fla. adhered to.
But, the former secretary of state maintained, “it matters what we do more than what we say.”
“It mattered that we got bin Laden, not what name we called him,” Clinton told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “Whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I’m happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing.”
Despite using the phrase during the interview, Clinton vowed not to “demonize, demagogue [or] declare war” on Islam because of the recent terror attack in Florida. Doing that, Clinton said, would play “right into ISIS’ hand.”
Both Clinton and Obama, who endorsed her to succeed him in the White House last week, have called the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history an act of terror and act of hate.
Trump is expected to criticize Clinton’s counterterrorism strategy during an afternoon speech on Monday at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.
