Culture

Trump Takes A Victory Lap For Calling The NYC Explosion ‘A Bomb’ Before Authorities Determined It Was Terrorism

If Donald Trump truly is an Internet comments section running for President of the United States, then the Republican nominee acted the part Monday morning when he boasted about being the first person to call Saturday night’s then-mysterious explosion in New York City a “bomb.” In other words, the White House hopeful used a phone interview on Fox & Friends to exclaim “First!” while discussing his previous comments made in Colorado Springs. At the time, Trump had only just learned about the incident in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

“I was criticized for calling it correctly,” said Trump. “What I said was exactly correct. I should be a newcaster because I called it before the news.”

The Fox & Friends co-hosts laughed along with the presidential candidate’s suggestion, which hinged on his claim that Democratic rival Hillary Clinton disliked his use of the word “bomb.” Clinton never actually ridiculed Trump for using the word preemptively, though she did emphasize, “It’s always wiser to wait until you have information before making conclusions.” However, several media outlets did take issue with Trump’s offhand remarks in Colorado, prompting Monday morning’s rant against the “disgusting and disgraceful” CNN and countless others: “Hillary Clinton used the word ‘bombs’ shortly thereafter and nobody said anything about it. And somebody said some of them edit that word out. They took it out. Hey, folks, it’s a rigged system.”

Whether or not Trump and Clinton were right or wrong to blame the incident on a “bomb,” the former spent the latter half of the weekend chatting it up in a politicized manner. While his initial remarks remained suggestive (“Nobody knows exactly what’s going on, but boy, we are living in a time”), Trump doubled down Monday morning on Fox & Friends. In doing so, he referenced his controversial concerns with President Obama’s policies regarding ISIS and Syrian refugees and paved the way for laying plenty of political blame on others:

“Our country’s been weak. We’re letting people in by the thousands and tens of thousands. I’ve been saying you gotta stop it. Just last week Obama said more than 100,000 people are going to come in from Syria. He’s letting more people in. Hillary Clinton wants to increase what he’s let in… They don’t know, they can’t be properly vetted.”

This isn’t the first time during the campaign that Trump has tried to claim responsibility for something with regards to an act of violence. After the Orlando nightclub shooting in June, the Republican nominee tweeted, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” after news of the shooter’s telephoned pledge to ISIS broke.

Check out Fox News perpetual correspondent Donald Trump’s latest report below.

(Via Politico)

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