Incoherent speech

Trump ramps up call for Muslim ban in speech called ‘incoherent’

By Joe Garofoli

Donald Trump used the Orlando massacre to intensify his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., proposing to suspend immigration from areas of the world “where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States” or its allies.

“The immigration laws of the United States give the president the power to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the president deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States, as he deems appropriate,” Trump said Monday. “I will use this power to protect the American people.

“When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats.”

But the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s half-hour speech — delivered from a teleprompter, which still remains the exception for the freewheeling New York businessman — was riddled with errors, vague promises, oversimplifications and inconsistencies, analysts said, with even fellow Republicans and others calling it “incoherent.”

“It was an opportunity for him to start to lay out a vision about what direction he’d go on foreign policy as commander in chief,” said Lanhee Chen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former chief policy adviser for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. “We got none of that. Instead, we got more on the Muslim ban.”

Trump had stated previously that all Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S. Expanding the ban from members of a specific religion to vague, unnamed areas around the world is “incoherent,” said Todd Schulte, president of fwd.us, a pro-immigration-rights organization founded by tech-community leaders.

“So does that mean that we are ending all immigration from Spain and London and Tokyo and France and India?” Schulte asked Monday. “All of these things that he talks about fall into this mix that is incoherent and anti-immigrant — which helped him consolidate one-third of the Republican primary vote.”

Politically, Chen said, the speech was unlikely to enlarge Trump’s support beyond those who already appreciate his tough talk and gravitate to his policy-free message that he will keep people safe.

“His tone is incredibly appealing to all the people who voted for him” in the GOP primaries, said Chen, who advised Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the primaries. “But it’s not clear who else it will attract.”

While Trump mentioned Democrat Hillary Clinton 19 times during his speech, she didn’t mention him once during a campaign stop earlier in the day in Ohio. Instead, in broad strokes, she called for expanding President Obama’s anti-terrorism policy.

“We should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign, accelerating support for our friends fighting to take and hold ground, and pushing our partners in the region to do even more,” Clinton said.

She also said she would make identifying “lone wolf” terrorists “a top priority.”

As for Trump, here is a closer look at some of the points he tried to make Monday:

The Orlando shooter was “an Afghan”: Trump said the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen “was born an Afghan, of Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States” and added that “the bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here.”

Not only was that wrong — like Trump, Mateen was born in Queens, N.Y., making him a U.S. citizen — but the fact that Mateen was born in America contradicts Trump’s premise that a ban on Muslims entering the country would make America safer.

“He was trying to tap into the baser fears of Americans by calling him out as an Afghan — as an excuse for putting him on one of these lists (of banned immigrants) he’s putting together,” said Jennifer Taw, a professor of government and international relations at Claremont-McKenna College. “I found his speech appalling, frankly.”

Strangely, Trump ad-libbed that remark; his remarks as prepared for delivery did not refer to Mateen as being born an Afghan.

Yet Trump still wants Muslims to help root out terrorists: Trump said “Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people” like Mateen.

“The Muslims have to work with us,” Trump said. “They know what’s going on. They know that (Mateen) was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death and destruction.”

Farhana Khera, the director of Muslim Advocates and former counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, called Trump’s comments reckless and dangerous.

“This is yet another example of Mr. Trump distorting the facts for political gain,” she said. “There is no evidence that the Muslim community knew of the killer’s intentions and plans. In fact, law enforcement officials have praised American Muslims repeatedly over the years for their role in helping to identify criminals before they’ve acted.”

Who is a better friend to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community? Trump said Monday that strict immigration bans on Muslims would better protect women and the LGBT community by preventing radical Muslim terrorists from pouring “into our country — they enslave women, and murder gays.”

“Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists to our country who suppress women, gays and anyone who doesn’t share their views,” Trump said.

But unlike Clinton, Trump opposes same-sex marriage, and his record of public statements on protecting the LGBT community from discrimination is “mixed,” according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization. It has endorsed Clinton.

“Donald Trump’s attack on Muslims today is intended to divide us. The person who committed this heinous act of violence was an American citizen conditioned to hate and to believe that LGBTQ people deserved to be massacred,” said Human Rights Campaign spokesman Jay Brown. “And make no mistake, Donald Trump is no friend of the LGBTQ community. Trump’s rhetoric today isn’t fooling anyone, and what he is peddling isn’t protection. It’s poison.”

Trump calls for antiterrorism efforts to be “tough” and “smart,” but offers no plan: Chen and others found it odd that while Trump said, “We will defeat ISIS overseas,” he has yet to offer a plan for how the U.S. would act militarily overseas to accomplish that goal.

“It’s not a particularly coherent policy position, so I don’t know if we can evaluate it,” Chen said. “There’s no grand strategy. There’s no specific plan for the Middle East. And there’s no specific plan to convince Arab allies to help us. He just talks about the need to do something. But the something we would do is not clear.”

Trump supported invading Libya — just like Clinton: On Monday, Trump referred to the U.S. invasion of Libya as Clinton’s “war in Libya,” but he supported it too at the time: In a 2011 video blog commentary Trump said, “We should do, on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy (Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy) out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives.”

Trump overstates Clinton’s refugee proposal: Trump said Clinton wants to accept “hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them.” That’s incorrect. She has proposed that the U.S. accept 65,000 Syrian refugees. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has an extensive screening process for resettling refugees, one that takes up to two years for people to wend through.