NYC terror probe pulls in Clinton, Trump

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Hillary Clinton cast herself Monday as the most qualified to combat terrorism in the U.S. after a weekend of violent attacks in three states. Going after rival Donald Trump, she argued that his anti-Muslim rhetoric is helping Islamic militants, including ISIS, recruit new fighters.

The Democratic presidential candidate touted her national security credentials at a hastily arranged news conference outside her campaign plane, accusing Republican Trump for using the incidents to make “some kind of demagogic point.”

“I’m the only candidate in this race who’s been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield,” Clinton, a former secretary of state, told reporters. “I have sat at that table in the Situation Room.”

She added: “I know how to do this.”

New York’s governor and mayor said Monday that the bombings in a Manhattan neighborhood and a New Jersey shore town are looking increasingly like acts of terrorism with a foreign connection. Authorities are also investigating the stabbings of nine people at a Minnesota mall as a possible act of terrorism.

The investigations cast a long shadow over the presidential race, diverting both candidates’ attention from the daily controversies of the presidential race.

Clinton and her team see her foreign policy experience as a key selling point for her candidacy. On the campaign trail, she frequently invokes her role in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, describing to voters the tense atmosphere in the White House alongside President Barack Obama.

But while much of the foreign policy establishment has rallied around Clinton, Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, promises to close U.S. borders and vows to aggressively profile potential terrorists have fueled his presidential bid.

“Knock the hell out of ‘em,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” in a phone interview Monday morning.

“We’re not knocking them, we’re hitting them once in a while; we’re hitting them in certain places. We’re being very gentle about it. We’re going to have to be very tough,” Trump told Fox News Channel.”

He said that U.S. leaders, including Obama, “coddle” potential terrorists, saying “we can’t let any more people come into this country” amid calls for increased racial profiling.

Trump once again took credit for predicting current events, pointing to his Saturday night announcement that a bomb had caused the explosion in New York City. That was less than an hour after the explosion and before authorities had publicly said so.