Dismayed Republicans scrambled for cover Tuesday from Donald Trump’s inflammatory response to the Orlando massacre, while President Barack Obama and Democrat Hillary Clinton delivered fiery denunciations that underscored the potential peril for the GOP.
President Barack Obama angrily denounced Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric on Tuesday, blasting the views of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as a threat to American security and a menacing echo of some of the most shameful moments in U.S. history.
Growing divisions:
Trump also boasted about his decision to stop issuing press credentials to The Washington Post, because of a headline he disliked.
“I did it with The Washington Post. I’m so happy,” Trump said. “Where’s The Washington Post? They’re probably somewhere. Maybe they’re in the back, in the back bleachers.”
House Republicans said they would meet with Trump on July 7, but the reactions of lawmakers underscored an atmosphere of anxiety and unease among Capitol Hill Republicans, who hoped to see Trump moderate his impulses in the weeks since clinching the nomination.
Instead, the opposite has occurred as the billionaire businessman has stoked one controversy after another and shows no sign of slowing down.
One senior Senate Republican, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, went so far as to suggest Trump might not end up as the party’s nominee after all.
“We do not have a nominee until after the convention,” Alexander asserted in response to a question. Reminded that Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, Alexander retorted, “That’s what you say.”
Other congressional Republicans claimed, improbably, not to have heard what Trump said.
“I just don’t know what he was talking about, I frankly don’t know what you’re talking about. I hadn’t heard it,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, in response to a question about Trump’s suggestions about Obama
Republican hopes are fading for a new, “more presidential” Trump as the party’s divisions around him grow ever more acute.
Republicans have instead hoped to focus on a broader criticism of the president’s counter-terrorism strategy as unfocused, ineffective and too soft of Islamic institutions and governments that support terrorism.
Ryan, who endorsed Trump only recently after a lengthy delay as he grappled with the implications of the celebrity businessman’s candidacy, ignored shouted questions about whether he stood by his support.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters he would not be commenting Tuesday about Trump.
“I continue to be discouraged by the direction of the campaign and comments that are made,” said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Monday’s Trump address was not “the type of speech that one would give that wants to lead this country through difficult times.”
For many Republicans the prospect of continually facing questions about Trump was plainly wearing thin.
“I’m just not going to comment on more of his statements. It’s going to be five months of it,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. Said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, “What Trump does or says, every time he says something doesn’t mean I have to have an answer for it.”
‘Not the America we want’:
Obama’s rebuke was his most searing yet of the man seeking to take his seat in the Oval Office.
While the president has frequently dismissed Trump as a buffoon or a huckster, this time he challenged the former reality television star as a “dangerous” threat to the nation’s safety, religious freedom and diversity.
“That’s not the America we want. It does not reflect our democratic ideals,” Obama declared in remarks that had been scheduled as simply updating the public on the counter-Islamic State campaign.
Obama walked listeners through a familiar litany of battlefield successes, but then came another message.
Growing more animated as he spoke, Obama said Trump’s “loose talk and sloppiness” could lead to discrimination and targeting of ethnic and religious minorities.
“We’ve gone through moments in our history before when we acted out of fear and we came to regret it,” Obama said. “We’ve seen our government mistreat our fellow citizens and it has been a shameful part of our history.”
Trump responded by suggesting that Obama is too solicitous of enemies.
