Still receiving the worst possible news. Our coverage will continue at the top of the hour. Worst ever, and this is hardball. Good evening, im Chris Matthews in washington. Tonight a stunned country is mourning the 49 victims of the deadliest mass shooting in history. The gunman responsible, a home grown extremest. Within hours of the horror, its become the front line of the american political debate and in the aftermath of the attack, Presumptive Republican nominee
donald trump took credit for proof siding the horrors, appreciate the congrats for being right on radical islamic terrorism. I dont want congrats, i want tough nls. He followed that up with the president himself quote is president obama go toiing to fiy mention radical islam pick terrorism or if not he should be immediately resigning in disgrace but trump was reaching for something sinister. Listened to what he said about president obamas motives and loyalties. He doesnt get it or gets it better than anybody understands, its one or the other. Were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or hes got Something Else in mind and the Something Else in mind, you know, people cant believe him. People cannot believe they cannot believe that president obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words radical islamic terrorism. There is something going on. Its inconceivable. There is something going on. There is something going on. Well talk about that phrase. Anyway, in dueling speeches delivered later today by Hillary Clinton and donald trump, the contrast between the approaches to fighting terrorism was stark. In clintons speech she spoke about the killer and propaganda that drove hill to commit yesterdays horrors. The orlando terrorist may be dead but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive and we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwaivering determination and pride in our country and our values. [ applause ] as president , i will make identifying and stopping lone wolves a top priority. Donald trump blamed the glove for letting dangerous people
into the country calling the killer an afghan even though he was born here. The killer whose name i will not use or ever say was born an afghan of afghan parents who immigrated to the United States. His father published support for the afghan taliban, a regime which murders those who dont share its radical views. 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. That is a fact, and its a fact we need to talk about. Im joined by bob woodward, susan paige and eugene robinson. I want to start with you, bob, and ask you what did well, lets just be blunt about it. Was he questioning the president s loyalty when trump said theres something going on here . He seems to maybe know more about this than we do. What is he talking about there . Its nasty, vague and mean and unnecessary and what people want to hear from the president ial candidates are practical and powerful solutions. How do we deal with this in this kind of talk serves no purpose and certainly did not serve props. There is a certain line if you go back. Joe smo saying this is one thing but a guy that started with statements like no one knew him at school. Talk about like was it really him . Signed up for all those years in school. Was that really the guy were calling president now and the idea he was born overseas, somehow sneak in the country, and now to say there is more to this than meets the eye, you know, whats he up to here . At the least about obama. President obama is inattentive and doesnt pay
enough attention to the issue of terrorism and at the worst hes saying there is some other thing going on im not going to say what hes a part of and goes back to remind us of the birth is he really legitimate president. It is is there a more serious charge you can make against a president than that . I think there is something deeper and more sinister going on. He makes the implication or asks us to draw the inference that theres something secret or a cult about president obama in his very nature and, you know, what i think of is all these allegations that hes some sort of secret muslim and not just a secret muslim, right, but a secret muslim who the inference was supposed to draw sympathizes somehow with the radical muslims who would destroy america. Thats the its an option. Ill take that cupcake. Somebody might say yeah, i like the way the president talks. What do you think, bob . Its so modelled in the height of what is makes no sense in what he has said is because obama wont use the language radical islamic terrorism, he should resign. No, he said that today. A lot today. If its i mean, if [ laughter ] people have suggested that president s resign for some pretty serious offenses. Yes, i know. I know. But failing to use certain language is usually for using language, not not using it. Well, sometimes its even for illegal action. Right call a certain choose what you want to hear, right . You can choose hes not doing enough or you can choose the more sinister language. This is what trump wants
ultimately for his uncle. He forced him to show his birth certificate like calling the guy to the side of the road and say lets see your papers. To go back to watergate lyingo,i am not a muslim. I have no other ambitions. Anyway, lets go back to earth here now. In her speech Hillary Clinton warned against the muslim ban. Lets watch her. Millions of peaceloving muslims live, work and raise their families across america. They are the most likely to recognize the effects of radicalization before its too late and the best positioned to help us block it. We should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them. Inflammatory, anti muslim
rhetoric and threatening to ban the families and friends of Muslim Americans from entering the country hurts the vast majority of muslim who love freedom and hate terror. [ applause ] whether you like what she said or not, clear what she meant. Lets not gang up or make generalizations when its one or two people that do this thing. Anyway, in contrast, donald trump doubled down on his proposed muslim ban expanding it to include areas of the world, not just religions but areas of the world that have a history of terrorism itself. Lets watch that. When im elected, i will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, europe or allies. Until we fully understand how to end these threats. Many of the principles of radical islam are incompatible with western values and institutions. The bottom line is that hillary supports policies that bring the threat of radical islam into america and allow it to grow overseas. In an attempt to say i told you so, which all politicians do, nothing new there, he referred to this killer as an afghan. Yeah. He was born in america, 14th amendment and the things we celebrate here. If youre born here, youre here and one of us. Why did he do that . Why did he say an afghan . Because it makes him sound more foreign and more sinister and more alarming and provides for justification for his idea of an immigration ban which would have done nothing like the judge is a mexican. If he said he was born in queens, hed have to say like i was also born in queens. Born in new york, the same as donald trump. So why did he say it . To argue if you have a pretty stiff immigration screen and you manage to find like the israelis do, you got to do a 45minute interview. Something more than that with maybe, no, im sure it wouldnt because the guys would know exactly what to say. They would say im a christian or im not a muslim or unity. Its jumbled and nonspecific but its, you know, immigration from that part of the world bad, right . East. And so now, in the present case, the assailant in florida was born in the United States 29 years ago. So what does he have a time machine to go back and sort of ban he did go to saudi arabia a couple times. This guy has a travel record that might put on lights at the fbi. It did. It did. He didnt just scrub in theUnited States a hang around the neighborhood. He was in saudi arabia twice, which should ring some bells. Clearly. We have to deal with the reality there are many people who are Trump Supporters who agree with this general line of criticism, and i you know, i dont know how you deal with it. Hillary clintons proposal of intensifying contacts within the Muslim Community is quite right and sensible but i mean, imagine if youre the fbi director and you have to deal with this. I mean, it is a problem out there. How do you know if the other person is radicalized, it could be a day or two. What is radicalization . Anyway and but you catch people on their way to go fight for isis and catch people who are involved in plots. They dont all get through. We catch some of them. The reason we catch them is because of cooperation from
members of the must almolim com. Today secretary clinton called for a stronger regulation on guns including restating, reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. Here she is. We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war and that may not stop every shooting or every terrorist attack but it will stop some and it will save lives and it will protect our first responders. Well, trump for his party accused clinton of wanting to ban all guns. Her plan is to disarm lawabiding americans, abolishing the Second Amendment and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. She wants to take away americans guns and then admit the very people who want to
slaughter us. Let them come into the country, we dont have guns. Let them come in. Let them have all the fun they want. Thats an interesting conspiracy theory. Disarm us on purpose so the foreign evil ones can kill us all. Thats a plan. Thats her plan according to trump. Thats the take. You can argue i actually think you can argue on both sides of the question of the terror list. How do you get on the list . How do you get off the list . This guy was on the list for awhile, the terror watch list and the fbi investigated him twice and interviewed him three times and decided he was not a threat. Clearly they were wrong on that but the system was followed we have two men from the post. What do you make of trump saying you guys are shutout from any coverage of him because of this Coverage Today . This makes no sense and wont work do you like that headline . Is that a true headline . Sometime there is are headlines that dont have all the clarity but the idea that you sort of are going to systematically ban people. I hate to go back 40 years but nixon on tape will say things like the post is going to have problems and then they got people donald trump seems to connect president obama to orlando shooting. Is that fair . Huh . Donald trump seems to connect president obama to orlandos shooting. Yeah, more fair than not. You know, he that implication loop. It doesnt matter. It doesnt matter. Right. It doesnt matter. Sometimes you write bad had leans and do stories we have to correct. Part of the process if you run for president , youll get covered by an aggressive press. I dont think this will last. I think hell get back in. Last time he said it was fair. I was accurate and i mean, this is just this is not going to last. This will not stand, i hope. Okay. Well thank you bob woodward and thank you susan paige. We had the sluggers row here, murderers row from the yankees. The late its investigation from orlando m ccoming up and wl talk to the partner of a bouncer killed at the nightclub in orlando over the weekend and the challenge of finding and stopping a lone wolf attacker before they strike. Right now youre looking at live pictures of a vigil right there in orlando itself as the Community Comes together to mourn 49 victims of sunday mornings attack. Hardba hardball back after this. Day. All across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and new infrastructure for a new generation
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video emerged from inside the nightclub. This was posted by 25yearold a Amanda Alvear who would later die in the nightclub. Im at the club. [ gunshots ]. You can hear the gunshots. While they escaped, amanda told them she was hiding in the bathroom. They did not hear from her again after that. Well be right back. Ts. A deluge of digital records. Xrays, mris. All on account. Of penelope. But with the help of at t, and a network that scales up and down ondemand, this hospital can be ready. Giving them the agility to be flexible reliable. Because no one knows like at t. Welcome back to hardball. The investigation into omar mateen continues this evening. Its the largest mass shooting in American History and while isis claimed the gunman as his own no indication he was directed from overseas. The attacker was radicalized but it is still unclear which terror group he aspired to support. Here is comb my. There are strong indications and inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations. He said he was doing this for the leader of isil who he named and pledged loyalty to but also appeared to claim solidarity with the boston bombers and the man that died as a suicide bomber in syria for a group in conflict with the socalled islamic state. What a great Public Servant mr. Comey is. President obama talked about the terrorist propaganda and threat it presents this to country. One of the Biggest Challenges were going to have is this kind of propaganda and proversions of islam that you see generated on the internet in the capacity for that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals and seeing them motivated them to take actions against people here in the United States and elsewhere in the world that are tragic. Proversion of islam. Very interesting phrase there. Im joined by Chris Jansing outside tonights vigil down in orlando. Chris, take it away. Reporter well, chris, this is something that the community had really wanted so desperately to do. They were very concerned about having enough manpower to do security but they decided that people so needed to come out and show solidarity. Look at the size of this crowd. It is a thick night here in orlando. Temperatures in the 90s. But the people are still streaming in. And i just met up with three young men who knew one of the victims eddie, jeff and colin join me now and you knew eddie sotomayor. Eddie was one of my first gay friends in college and i met him at a bar and we immediately became best friends. I was in the closet and didnt have many gay friends. I no longer live here but weve kept up through facebook and i saw him a few months ago and hes still somebody very, very special to me and he was a beautiful soul and had an infectious laughter and a leader in the Gay Community and very active and the message i have, if you dont think were peel, youre wrong. And if you think there is a mild form of homophobia, youre wrong
and if you think and if you dont do something about this, its going to kill me. Its going to kill my friends and its going to kill my friends friends. Reporter i know this is a very emotional time for you. What made you have to come out here tonight . Orlando is such a tight knit community. Orlando has been attacked but as an Lgbt Community, we are so close and such one big family. And when you attack one of us, you attack all of us and every Single Person that i talked to has known someone on that list. If you didnt know someone there, youre one degree from knowing a person there. This is is such it hits so close to home that we have to be here for each other to support and the attorneyout here tonight is unbelievable for an Orlando Community and the love ive seen
on facebook and social media from my company that i work for has been unparallel and ive not seen this before and everyone thats shown support, we hear you. We are listening and we need the continued support not just today, not just tomorrow but for the weeks to come for our community. Reporter let me just ask you what it meant to you to come here tonight. I think it just meant showing that were still here. A friend of mine so eloquently posted on facebook, the Gay Community was forged in the fire. This unfortunately is no shocker to us. Were used to this sort of persecution and in spite of that, we still choose to love and i think thats the message that you can see here is one of love and of acceptance and this doesnt stop that. We will continue that on no
matter how many, you know, outrageous acts of hate are committed against us. Were here to love and were not going anywhere. Reporter colin, jeff and eddie, thank you. There is a strong showing of the Lgbt Community, ive seen muslims here. We see straight couples here. Seen a few families here and as i said, chris, standing up earlier, i could see people are still streaming in. Chris . Im so glad we could get that report from you Chris Jansing, impressive people. Joining us from San Francisco is star shelton whose former partner kim, k. J. Was his nickname morris was killed in yesterdays shooting. Star, my conldolences to you. What was she like as a person . Was her job like . Being a bouncer is sort of a physical aspect. You got to get people out of a place that shouldnt be there and keep order. What do you know . We should know . Absolutely. What i can tell you is that k. J. Is a wonderful, wonderful person. Anybody that knows her or anybody that had the chance to meet her has known that about her and has felt her love and her care that she gives to the entire world. I could say no