‘Naive’ Hillary Blasted for Assertion Trump Gives ‘Aid’ to ISIS

Facing a free-fall in the polls, Hillary Clinton has now turned to a new hyperbolic tactic: accusing Donald Trump of being a recruitment tool for ISIS.

On Monday, standing on a tarmac in White Plains, New York, Clinton said ISIS has “seized on” the rhetoric of Trump. Clinton said his anti-terrorism comments have been used online to recruit for ISIS.

“The No. 1 recruitment tool for ISIS is weak U.S. leadership,” said Grenell. “Inside Syria, it’s a vacuum of U.S. leadership. That’s an [ISIS] recruitment tool.”

But perhaps her most incendiary comment came at the end of her remarks, when she said Trump was actually aiding ISIS.

“We also know from the former head of our counterterrorism center, Matt Olsen, that the kinds of rhetoric and language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries,” Clinton said.

All the more remarkable was that the press huddle on the tarmac was called to address the bombings in New York and New Jersey, and the stabbing attacks in Minnesota. Both perpetrators were alleged to have been motivated by Islamic extremism.

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But Clinton seemed more concerned about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, her rival, and his rhetoric on fighting terrorism.

Counterterrorism experts lampooned Clinton’s rhetoric.

“Where is the media to condemn her for saying such an obnoxious thing?” said Fred Fleitz, senior vice president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and a former chief of staff to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

Fleitz said Clinton’s remarks were naive. It’s America that ISIS really hates, he said.

“Hillary’s comments indicate she doesn’t understand that,” Fleitz said. “They hate her too.”

Yet such naive thinking runs through the Obama administration. It’s a kind of messianic thinking that Hillary Clinton likely picked up from Obama. When he entered office in 2009, President Obama probably thought the pipes of peace would never stop playing. He was not a belligerent president like his predecessor, George W. Bush.

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“Obama thought all the world’s problems were because of Bush,” said Fleitz.

Fleitz said Obama thought his magnificence and eloquence would get America’s enemies to lay down their arms. Yet the world responded poorly to Obama: ISIS rose from the ashes of Iraq and Syria, and North Korea set off powerful new bombs.

Now, weak leadership under Obama and Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, is its own device for ISIS, said Richard Grenell, a founder of Capital Media Partners and a former U.S. spokesman at the U.N.

“The No. 1 recruitment tool for ISIS is weak U.S. leadership,” said Grenell. “Inside Syria, it’s a vacuum of U.S. leadership. That’s an [ISIS] recruitment tool.”

Grenell said not attacking ISIS on the ground has let their command center and leaders remain in hiding. Grenell said U.S. forces under Obama have not been able to lead a coalition to dismantle the ISIS command structure and headquarters.

So now, during the last months of an election campaign, Clinton tells the world that it is Trump who is the threat to world security.

“It’s really nonsense,” said Kyle Shideler, the director of the Threat Information Office of the Center for Security Policy. “Jihadists ultimately do not care who the president is of an infidel country. It was [al-Qaida’s current leader] Ayman al-Zawahiri who said it is democracy itself that is abhorrent to them.”

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Shideler said al-Qaida and ISIS have referenced Democratic leaders in the past. A key issue with the terrorists has been the use of drone strikes, which accelerated under President Barack Obama, Clinton’s ally in the election.

And back in the late 1990s, al-Qaida used pictures of Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, as practice targets at their Afghan training camps. The 9/11 attacks were allegedly a response to President Bill Clinton’s missile attacks on Osama bin Laden’s compounds in Sudan and Afghanistan.

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The attacks always missed al-Qaida’s key leaders, and were used mightily as rallying cries by bin Laden.

Grenell said Clinton’s remarks are similar to her attack on Trump supporters, when she called half of them “deplorable” and “irredeemable” on Sept. 9.

It’s a contempt she has for anyone who doesn’t share her worldview. But it’s also about how she chooses to label her opponents, and it shows Clinton may not be up for the job in the White House.

“Hillary Clinton’s judgment is in question here,” said Grenell.