After Orlando, Clinton Urges Unity While Trump Goes on the Attack

Hillary Clinton called for national unity, new gun restrictions and intensified contacts within the Muslim community.

Donald Trump went on the attack.

In their first speeches since the Orlando, Florida, shooting massacre, the two major parties' presumptive nominees for president outlined vastly different solutions for stemming the mind-numbing threat of domestic terrorism.

Clinton, speaking at a manufacturing plant in Cleveland on Monday, said it would be most effective to confront the problem of radical jihadists with "clear hearts and steady hands and pride in the country and its values." She said she would make identifying and stopping lone-wolf actors – such as the 29-year-old Muslim man who committed Sunday's atrocity, apparently as a result of inspiration by the Islamic State group and not specific direction – a top priority of her administration.

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She also reiterated her call for an assault weapons ban and more extensive background checks during gun sales.

"I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. "If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn't be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show."

In the most specific series of proposals in her address, the former secretary of state continued, lamenting a past unsuccessful Democratic effort to bar people identified by the government as suspected terrorists from buying a gun: "If you're too dangerous to get on a plane, you're too dangerous to buy a gun in America," she said.

Speaking less than two hours later at a college in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump asked for a moment of silence for the victims and repeatedly noted his solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, before launching into a blistering series of strikes against Clinton.

The New York City billionaire accused her of naively adhering to political correctness in avoiding labeling previous attacks the result of "radical Islam." Earlier in the day on CNN, however, Clinton said, "Whether you call it radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing."

Trump charged that Clinton "has no clue what radical Islam is," and argued that tough gun restrictions in France failed to prevent the terrorist attacks in Paris last November that took 130 lives.

"Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans," Trump said. "Not gonna happen folks, not gonna happen. I will be always defending the Second Amendment."

Trump also spent a good deal of time talking about implementing a significantly stricter immigration policy, and repeated his previous call for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

He said law enforcement should provide to the public the immigration history of all those implicated in terrorist activities since the Sept. 11 attacks in order to properly answer the question, "Why are they here?"

He also placed the blame on Clinton for the growing number of immigrants coming into the U.S. from the Middle East each year, comparing her call to admit more Syrian refugees to possibly a "better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan horse."

In a new policy proposal, Trump said he would suspend immigration from any areas in the world where a viable threat persists against America, using executive powers to do so.

"Many of the principles of radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and its institutions," he said. "Remember this: Radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American … We need to tell the truth about radical Islam and we need to do it now."

As a clever way to engender wider support for his Muslim ban and tighter screening of immigrants, Trump repeated his sympathy for the gay community at several points throughout his speech and attempted to position Clinton as perpetuating policies against that minority group's interests.

"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. "Ask yourself, who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community: Donald Trump with his actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words?"

Unlike Trump, Clinton never invoked the name of her general election opponent, proclaiming at the top of her remarks that "today is not a day for politics." In many ways, she delivered the traditional political speech most politicians would give a day after such a harrowing national tragedy. She showed calm and poise, but appeared more determined to allay fears than to stoke them.

She noted her call to the mayor of Orlando offering support and appreciation. Without specifics, she promised to protect soft terrorism targets like nightclubs, hotels and schools. And while fully recognizing the risk of "a distorted version of Islam," she suggested more collaboration with Muslims, not less, in order to eradicate the metastasizing threat.

"We should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them," she said. "We should avoid eroding trust in that community."

A ban like Trump's, she said without mentioning his name, would only hurt the vast majority of Muslims "who love freedom and hate terror."

Her most powerful moment came at the close of her speech when she recalled that former President George W. Bush, a Republican, made a point to visit an Islamic center days after the Sept. 11 attacks. The anecdote was a clear olive branch to Republicans disillusioned with Trump's divisive nationalism, and an implicit invitation to fold into her camp. It was Clinton at her most balanced, putting forth an all-of-the-above approach but excepting the more radical prescriptions of Trump.

"It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, the spirit of 9-12," Clinton said.

Trump, on the other hand, showed no reluctance in conducting political warfare even as a jolted nation mourned another mass-casualty loss.

"We cannot afford to talk around issues anymore. We have to address these issues head-on," he warned.

The respective speeches signaled the immense political gap between these two candidates, as Trump and Clinton don't even agree on the issues that need to be tackled.

Trump signaled no openness to a change in gun laws – Clinton's most prominent remedy. Clinton didn't mention any shift on immigration law or a dramatic parting from the anti-terror policies currently being administered.

"She clearly wants more U.S leadership than Obama, but much of that is left pretty vague," says Stuart Gottlieb, a Columbia University professor of international and public affairs who formerly served as a policy adviser to Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Chris Dodd. "All this said, this is not an easy policy challenge, though clearly made more difficult on Obama's watch."